BOLLINGEN SERIES XX
THE COLLECTED WORKS
OF
C . G . J U N G
VOLUME 9, PART 1
EDITORS
+SIR HERBERT READ
MICHAEL FORDHAM, F.R.C.PSYCH., HON. F.B.PS.S.
GERHARD ADLER, PH.D.
WILLIAM MCGUIRE,
executive editor
MandaIa of a Modern Man
THE ARCHETYPES
AND THE
COLLECTIVE
UNCONSCIOUS
SECOND EDITION
C. G. JUJVG
T R A N S L A T E D BY R . F. C . H U L L
B O L L I N G E N
PRINCETON
S E R I E S
X X
UNIVERSITY PRESS
COPYRIGHT © 195G BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC., NEW YORK, N.Y.
NEW MATERIAL COPYRIGHT © 1969 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
SECOND EDITION,
1968
third printing, ipyi
fourth printing, /975
fifth
printing, /977
First PrincetonjBollingen Paperback
printing, 1980
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EDITORIAL NOTE
The concept of archetypes and its correlate, that of the collec
tive unconscious, are among the better known theories de
veloped by Professor Jung. Their origins may be traced to his
earliest publication, "On the Psychology and Pathology of Socalled Occult Phenomena" (1902),* in which he described the
fantasies of an hysterical medium. Intimations of the concepts
can be found in many of his subsequent writings, and gradually
tentative statements crystallized and were reformulated until a
stable core of theory was established.
Part I of Volume 9 consists of essays—written from 1933 on
ward—describing and elaborating the two concepts. The volume
is introduced by three essays establishing the theoretical basis,
followed by others describing specific archetypes. The relation
of these to the process of individuation is defined in essays in
the last section.
Part II of the volume, entitled Aion and published separately,
is devoted to a long monograph on the symbolism of the self
as revealed in the "Christian aeon." Together the two parts give
the nucleus of Jung's work on the theory and meaning of arche
types in relation to the psyche as a whole.
*
While the illustrations that accompany the last two papers are
the same subjects published with the Swiss versions in Gestaltungen des Unbewussten, they have now been rephotographed and
improved in presentation. It has been possible to give the entire
pictorial series illustrating "A Study in the Process of Individu
ation" in colour and to add seven additional pictures, which were
• In Psychiatric Studies, vol. 1 of the Coll. Works.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
chosen by the author from those in his possession (par. 616).
Several of the illustrations for "Concerning Mandala Symbol
ism," also, are now given in colour. Grateful acknowledgment is
made to Mrs. Aniela Jaffe and to Mrs. Margaret Schevill-Link
for their kind assistance in connection with the pictures. The
frontispiece was published in the Swiss magazine Du (April
1955), with the brief article by Professor Jung on mandalas
which is given in the appendix. This "Mandala of a Modern
Man" was painted in 1916.
EDITORIAL NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Bibliographical citations and entries have been revised in the
light of subsequent publications in the Collected Works and es
sential corrections have been made. Jung's acknowledgment in
his Memories, Dreams, Reflections of having painted the man
dala illustrated in the frontispiece, and four other mandalas in
this volume, is explained on page 355, n.i.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Grateful acknowledgment is made to those whose translations
have been consulted: Mr. W. S. Dell, for help derived from his
translations of two papers: "Archetypes of the Collective Un
conscious" and "The Meaning of Individuation" (here entitled
"Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation"), both published
in The Integration of the Personality; Mrs. Cary F. Baynes and
Miss Ximena de Angulo, for permission to use, virtually un
changed, long portions of their translations of "Psychological
Aspects of the Mother Archetype" and "Concerning Rebirth,"
issued in Spring (New York), 1943 and 1944; and to Miss Hildegard Nagel, for reference to her translation of "The Psychology
of the Trickster-Figure," in Spring, 1955.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL NOTE
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Translated from "tjber die Archetypen des kollektiven Unbewussten," Von den Wurzeln des Bewusstseins (Zurich:
Rascher, 1954).
The Concept of the Collective Unconscious
Originally published in English in the Journal of St. Barthol
omew's Hospital (London), XLIV (1936/37).
Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference
to the Anima Concept
Translated from "LJber den Archetypus mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung des Animabegriffes," Von den Wurzeln des
Bewusstseins (Zurich: Rascher, 1954).
II
Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype
Translated from "Die psychologischen Aspekte des MutterArchetypus," Von den Wurzeln des Bewusstseins (Zurich:
Rascher, 1954).
1. ON THE CONCEPT OF THE ARCHETYPE, 75
2. THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE, 81
vii
CONTENTS
3. THE MOTHER-COMPLEX, 85
The Mother-Complex of the Son, 85. — n . The
Mother-Complex of the Daughter, 87 (a. Hyper
trophy of the Maternal Element, 87; b. Overde
velopment o£ Eros, 88; c. Identity with the Mother,
89; d. Resistance to the Mother, 90)
I.
4. POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER-COMPLEX, 92
i. The Mother, 92. —11. The Overdeveloped Eros,
94. — in. The "Nothing-But" Daughter, 97. — iv.
The Negative Mother-Complex, g8
5. CONCLUSION, 101
III
Concerning Rebirth
113
Translated from "Dber Wiedergeburt," Gestaltungen des Unbewussten (Zurich: Rascher, 1950).
1. FORMS OF REBIRTH, 113
2. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REBIRTH, 116
i. Experience of the Transcendence of Life, 117 (a.
Experiences Induced by Ritual, 117; b. Immediate
Experiences, 118).— 11. Subjective Transformation,
119 (a. Diminution of Personality, 119; b. Enlarge
ment of Personality, 120; c. Change of Internal
Structure, 122; d. Identification with a Group, 125;
e. Identification with a Cult-Hero, 128; f. Magical
Procedures, 128; g. Technical Transformation, 129;
h. Natural Transformation (Individuation), 130)
3. A TYPICAL SET OF SYMBOLS ILLUSTRATING THE PROCESS
OF TRANSFORMATION, 135
IV
The Psychology of the Child Archetype
Translated from "Zur Psychologic des Kind-Archetypus,"
Einfiihrung in das Wesen der Mythologie (with K. Kerinyi),
4th revised edition (Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1951).
viii
151
CONTENTS
ι. Introduction, 151. —n. The Psychology of the
Child Archetype, 160 (1, The Archetype as a Link
with the Past, 160; 2. The Function of the Arche
type, 162; 3. The Futurity of the Archetype, 164;
4. Unity and Plurality of the Child Motif, 165;
5. Child God and Child Hero, 165). — in. The Spe
cial Phenomenology of the Child Archetype, 167
(1. The Abandonment of the Child, 167; 2. The In
vincibility of the Child, 170; 3. The Hermaphrodit
ism of the Child, 173; 4. The Child as Beginning
and End, 177) —iv. Conclusion, 179
The Psychological Aspects of the Kore
182
Translated from "Zum psychologischen Aspekt der KoreFigur," Einfuhrurtg in das Wesen der Mythologie (with K. .
Ker£nyi), 4th revised edition (Zurich: Rhein-VerIag, 1951).
V
The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales
207
Translated from "Zur Phanomenologie des Geistes im Marchen," Symbolik des Geistes (Zurich: Rascher, 1948).
i. Concerning the Word "Spirit," 208. —11. SelfRepresentation of the Spirit in Dreams, 214.—
in. The Spirit in Fairytales, 217. — iv. Theriomorphic Spirit Symbolism in Fairytales, 230. — v. Sup
plement, 243. — vi. Conclusion, 252
On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure
255
Translated from part 5 of D e r G o t t l i c h e Schelm f by Paul
Radin, with commentaries by C. G. Jung and Kaxl Ker6nyi
(Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1954).
VI
Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation
Originally written in English as "The Meaning of Indi
viduation," in The Integration 0/ the Personality (New York:
Farrar and Rinehart, 1939; London: Kegan Paul, 1940); here
ix
275
CONTENTS
revised in accordance with the German version, "Bewusstsein,
Unbewusstes und Individuation," Zentralblatt fur Psychotherapie und ihre Grenzgebiete (Leipzig), XI (1939).
A Study in the Process of Individuation
Translated from "Zur Empirie des Individuationsprozesses,"
Gestaltungen des Unbewussten (Zurich: Rascher, 1950).
Introductory, 290. - Picture 1, 292. - Picture 2, 294.
- Picture 3. 305· - Picture 4. 3 1 3. - Picture 5, 3 1 9.
- Picture 6, 323. - Picture 7, 326. - Picture 8, 335.
- Picture 9,338. - Picture 10, 342. - Picture 11,345.
- Pictures 12-24, 345. - Conclusion, 348
Concerning Mandala Symbolism
Translated from "Uber Mandalasymbolik," Gestaltungen des
Unbewussten (Zurich: Rascher, 1950).
APPENDIX:
Mandalas
Translated from Du (Zurich), XV: 4 (April 1955).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
x
355
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mandala of a Modern Man
frontispiece
Painting by C. G. Jung, 1916. The microcosmic enclosed within
the macrocosmic system of opposites. Macrocosm, top: boy in the
winged egg, Erikapaios or Phanes, the spiritual principle with
triadic fire-symbol and attributes; bottom, his dark adversary
Abraxas, ruler of the physical world, with double pentadic star of
natural man and rebirth symbols. Microcosm, left: snake with
phallus, the procreative principle; right, dove of Holy Ghost with
double beaker of Sophia. Inner sun (jagged circle) encloses repeti
tions of this system on a diminishing scale, with inner microcosm at
the centre. (From Du, Zurich, April 1955, where the mandala was
reproduced. Cf. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 195, U.S.; 187,
Brit.)
FOR "A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION"
Pictures 1—24
following page
292
Water-colour or tempera paintings, as described in the text; from
the author's collection
Fig, i.
MandaIa from Bohme's XL Questions con
cerning the Soule (1620)
Fig. 2.
297
Sketch of a picture from the year 1916
309
Fig. 3. Sketch of a drawing by a young woman pa
tient with psychogenic depression
315
Fig. 4.
Neolithic relief from Tarxien, Malta
321
Fig. 5.
Mandala by a woman patient
347
FOR "CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM"
Figures 1-54
following page 356
As described in the text; mainly from the author's collection
I
ARCHETYPES OF THE
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
THE CONCEPT OF THE
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES,
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE ANIMA CONCEPT
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS 1
The hypothesis of a collective unconscious belongs to the
class of ideas that people at first find strange but soon come to
possess and use as familiar conceptions. This has been the case
with the concept of the unconscious in general. After the philo
sophical idea of the unconscious, in the form presented chiefly
by Carus and von Hartmann, had gone down under the over
whelming wave of materialism and empiricism, leaving hardly
a ripple behind it, it gradually reappeared in the scientific do
main of medical psychology.
2
At first the concept of the unconscious was limited to denot
ing the state of repressed or forgotten contents. Even with
Freud, who makes the unconscious—at least metaphorically—
take the stage as the acting subject, it is really nothing but the
gathering place of forgotten and repressed contents, and has a
functional significance thanks only to these. For Freud, accord
ingly, the unconscious is of an exclusively personal nature, 2
although he was aware of its archaic and mythological thoughtforms.
3
A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is un
doubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious. But this
personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not
derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisi
tion but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective uncon
scious. I have chosen the term "collective" because this part of
the unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to
1
ι [First published in the Eranos-Jahrbuch 1934, and later revised and published
in Von den Wurzeln des Bewusstseins (Zurich, 1954), from which version the
present translation is made. The translation of the original version, by Stanley
Dell, in The Integration of the Personality (New York, 1939; London, 1940), has
been freely consulted.—EDITORS.]
2 In his later works Freud differentiated the basic view mentioned here. He called
the instinctual psyche the "id," and his "super-ego" denotes the collective con
sciousness, of which the individual is partly conscious and partly unconscious
(because it is repressed).
B
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behaviouT that
are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. It
is, in other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a
common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is
present in every one of us.
4
Psychic existence can be recognized only by the presence of
contents that are capable of consciousness. We can therefore
speak of an unconscious only in so far as we are able to demon
strate its contents. The contents of the personal unconscious are
chiefly the feeling-toned complexes, as they are called; they con
stitute the personal and private side of psychic life. The contents
of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as
archetypes.
5
The term "archetype" occurs as early as Philo Judaeus, 8 with
reference to the Imago Dei (God-image) in man. It can also be
found in Irenaeus, who says: "The creator of the world did not
fashion these things directly from himself but copied them from
archetypes outside himself." 4 In the Corpus Hermeticum, 5 God
is called τό άρχί-nmov ψώς (archetypal light). The term occurs
several times in Dionysius the Areopagite, as for instance in De
caelesti hierarchia, II, 4: "immaterial Archetypes," 6 and in
De divinis nominibus, I, 6: "Archetypal stone." 7 The term
"archetype" is not found in St. Augustine, but the idea of it is.
Thus in De diversis quaestionibus LXXXHI he speaks of "ideae
principales, 'which are themselves not formed . . . but are con
tained in the divine understanding.' " 8 "Archetype" is an explan
atory paraphrase of the Platonic ei'Sos. For our purposes this term
is apposite and helpful, because it tells us that so far as the col8 De opificio mundi, I, 69. Cf. CoIson(Whitaker trans., I, p. 55.
4 Adversus haereses II, 7, 5: "Mundi fabricator non a semetipso fecit haec, sed de
alienii archetypis transtulit." (Cf. Roberts/Rarabaut trans., I, p. 139.)
5 Scott, Hermetica, I, p. 140.
Gjn Migne, P.O., vol. 3, col. 144.
T Ibid., col. 595. Cf. The Divine Names (trans, by Rolt), pp. 62, 7¾.
8 Migne, P.L., vol. 40, col. 30. "Archetype" is used in the same way by the alche
mists, as in the "Tractatus aureus" of Hermes Trismegistus (Theatrum chemicum,
IV, 1613, p. 718): "As God [contains] all the treasure of his godhead , . . hidden
in himself as in an archetype [in se tanquam archetypo absconditum] . . . in
like manner Saturn carries the similitudes of metallic bodies hiddenly in him
self." In the "Tractatus de igne et sale" of Vigenerus (Theatr. chem., VI, 1661,
p. g), the world is "ad archetypi sui similitudinem factus" (made after the like
ness of its archetype) and is therefore called the "magnus homo" (the "homo
maximus" of Swedenborg).
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
lective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with
archaic or—I would say—primordial types, that is, with universal
images that have existed since the remotest times. The term
"representations collectives," used by L£vy-Bruhl to denote the
symbolic figures in the primitive view of the world, could easily
be applied to unconscious contents as well, since it means prac
tically the same thing. Primitive tribal lore is concerned with
archetypes that have been modified in a special way. They are
no longer contents of the unconscious, but have already been
changed into conscious formulae taught according to tradition,
generally in the form of esoteric teaching. This last is a typical
means of expression for the transmission of collective contents
originally derived from the unconscious.
6
Another well-known expression of the archetypes is myth
and fairytale. But here too we are dealing with forms that have
received a specific stamp and have been handed down through
long periods of time. The term "archetype" thus applies only
indirectly to the "reprisentations collectives," since it designates
only those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted
to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum
of psychic experience. In this sense there is a considerable dif
ference between the archetype and the historical formula that
has evolved. Especially on the higher levels of esoteric teaching
the archetypes appear in a form that reveals quite unmistakably
the critical and evaluating influence of conscious elaboration.
Their immediate manifestation, as we encounter it in dreams
and visions, is much more individual, less understandable, and
more naive than in myths, for example. The archetype is essen
tially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming con
scious and by being perceived, and it takes its colour from the
individual consciousness in which it happens to appear.9
7
What the word "archetype" means in the nominal sense is
clear enough, then, from its relations with myth, esoteric teach
ing, and fairytale. But if we try to establish what an archetype
is psychologically, the matter becomes more complicated. So far
mythologists have always helped themselves out with solar,
β One must, for the sake of accuracy, distinguish between "archetype" and
"archetypal ideas." The archetype as such is a hypothetical and irrepresentable
model, something like the "pattern of behaviour" in biology. Cf. "On the Nature
of the Psyche," sec. 7.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
lunar, meteorological, vegetal, and other ideas of the kind. The
fact that myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that
reveal the nature of the soul is something they have absolutely
refused to see until now. Primitive man is not much interested
in objective explanations of the obvious, but he has an impera
tive need—or rather, his unconscious psyche has an irresistible
urge—to assimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic
events. It is not enough for the primitive to see the sun rise and
set; this external observation must at the same time be a psychic
happening: the sun in its course must represent the fate of a
god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in
the soul of man. All the mythologized processes of nature, such
as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the rainy sea
sons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories 10 of these objective
occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner,
unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to
man's consciousness by way of projection—that is, mirrored in
the events of nature. The projection is so fundamental that it
has taken several thousand years of civilization to detach it in
some measure from its outer object. In the case of astrology, for
instance, this age-old "scientia intuitiva" came to be branded as
rank heresy because man had not yet succeeded in making the
psychological description of character independent of the stars.
Even today, people who still believe in astrology fall almost
without exception for the old superstitious assumption of the
influence of the stars. And yet anyone who can calculate a horo
scope should know that, since the days of Hipparchus of Alex
andria, the spring-point has been fixed at o° Aries, and that the
zodiac on which every horoscope is based is therefore quite
arbitrary, the spring-point having gradually advanced, since
then, into the first degrees of Pisces, owing to the precession of
the equinoxes.
Primitive man impresses us so strongly with his subjectivity
that we should really have guessed long ago that myths refer
to something psychic. His knowledge of nature is essentially the
language and outer dress of an unconscious psychic process. But
the very fact that this process is unconscious gives us the reason
10 An allegory is a paraphrase of a conscious content, whereas a symbol is the
best possible expression for an unconscious content whose nature can only be
guessed, because it is still unknown.
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
why man has thought of everything except the psyche in his
attempts to explain myths. He simply didn't know that the
psyche contains all the images that have ever given rise to
myths, and that our unconscious is an acting and suffering sub
ject with an inner drama which primitive man rediscovers, by
means of analogy, in the processes of nature both great and
small.11
9
"The stars of thine own fate lie in thy breast," 12 says Seni
to Wallenstein—a dictum that should satisfy all astrologers if we
knew even a little about the secrets of the heart. But for this, so
far, men have had little understanding. Nor would I dare to
assert that things are any better today.
10
Tribal lore is always sacred and dangerous. All esoteric teach
ings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche,
and all claim supreme authority for themselves. What is true of
primitive lore is true in even higher degree of the ruling world
religions. They contain a revealed knowledge that was originally
hidden, and they set forth the secrets of the soul in glorious
images. Their temples and their sacred writings proclaim in
image and word the doctrine hallowed from of old, making it
accessible to every believing heart, every sensitive vision, every
farthest range of thought. Indeed, we are compelled to say that
the more beautiful, the more sublime, the more comprehensive
the image that has evolved and been handed down by tradi
tion, the further removed it is from individual experience. We
can just feel our way into it and sense something of it, but the
original experience has been lost.
11
Why is psychology the youngest of the empirical sciences?
Why have we not long since discovered the unconscious and
raised up its treasure-house of eternal images? Simply because
we had a religious formula for everything psychic—and one that
is far more beautiful and comprehensive than immediate expe
rience. Though the Christian view of the world has paled for
many people, the symbolic treasure-rooms of the East are still
full of marvels that can nourish for a long time to come the pas
sion for show and new clothes. What is more, these images—be
they Christian or Buddhist or what you will-are lovely,
11 Cf. my papers on the divine child and the Kore in the present volume, and
Kerinyi's complementary essays in Essays on [or Introduction ίο] a Science of
Mythology.
12 [Schiller, Piccolomini, II, 6.-EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
mysterious, richly intuitive. Naturally, the more familiar we are
with them the more does constant usage polish them smooth, so
that what remains is only banal superficiality and meaningless
paradox. The mystery of the Virgin Birth, or the homoousia of
the Son with the Father, or the Trinity which is nevertheless
not a triad—these no longer lend wings to any philosophical
fancy. They have stiffened into mere objects of belief. So it is
not surprising if the religious need, the believing mind, and the
philosophical speculations of the educated European are at
tracted by the symbols of the East—those grandiose conceptions
of divinity in India and the abysms of Taoist philosophy in
China—just as once before the heart and mind of the men of
antiquity were gripped by Christian ideas. There are many
Europeans who began by surrendering completely to the in
fluence of the Christian symbol until they landed themselves in
a Kierkegaardian neurosis, or whose relation to God, owing to
the progressive impoverishment of symbolism, developed into
an unbearably sophisticated I-You relationship—only to fall
victims in their turn to the magic and novelty of Eastern sym
bols. This surrender is not necessarily a defeat; rather it proves
the receptiveness and vitality of the religious sense. We can
observe much the same thing in the educated Oriental, who not
infrequently feels drawn to the Christian symbol or to the sci
ence that is so unsuited to the Oriental mind, and even develops
an enviable understanding of them. That people should suc
cumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is
what these images are for. They are meant to attract, to con
vince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of
the primal stuff of revelation and reflect the ever -unique expe
rience of divinity. That is why they always give man a premoni
tion of the divine while at the same time safeguarding him from
immediate experience of it. Thanks to the labours of the human
spirit over the centuries, these images have become embedded in
a comprehensive system of thought that ascribes an order to the
world, and are at the same time represented by a mighty, farspread, and venerable institution called the Church.
1S
I can best illustrate my meaning by taking as an example the
Swiss mystic and hermit, Brother Nicholas of FIiie, 13 who
has recently been canonized. Probably his most important re13 Cf. my "Brother Kiaus."
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
ligious experience was the so-called Trinity Vision, which pre
occupied him to such an extent that he painted it, or had it
painted, on the wall of his cell. The painting is still preserved
in the parish church at Sachseln. It is a mandala divided into six
parts, and in the centre is the crowned countenance oi God.
Now we know that Brother Klaus investigated the nature of his
vision with the help of an illustrated devotional booklet by a
German mystic, and that he struggled to get his original expe
rience into a form he could understand. He occupied himself
with it for years. This is what I call the "elaboration" of the
symbol. His reflections on the nature of the vision, influenced
as they were by the mystic diagrams he used as a guiding thread,
inevitably led him to the conclusion that he must have gazed
upon the Holy Trinity itself—the summum bonum, eternal love.
This is borne out by the "expurgated" version now in Sachseln.
1S
The original experience, however, was entirely different. In
his ecstasy there was revealed to Brother Klaus a sight so terrible
that his own countenance was changed by it—so much so, in
deed, that people were terrified and felt afraid of him. What he
had seen was a vision of the utmost intensity. Woelflin, 14 our
oldest source, writes as follows:
All who came to him were filled with terror at the first glance. As
to the cause of this, he himself used to say that he had seen a pierc
ing light resembling a human face. At the sight of it he feared that
his heart would burst into little pieces. Therefore, overcome with
terror, he instantly turned his face away and fell to the ground. And
that was the reason why his face was now terrible to others.
'4
This vision has rightly been compared 15 with the one in
Revelation ι : igff., that strange apocalyptic Christ-image, which
for sheer gruesomeness and singularity is surpassed only by the
monstrous seven-eyed lamb with seven horns (Rev. 5 : 6f.). It is
certainly very difficult to see what is the relationship between
this figure and the Christ of the gospels. Hence Brother Klaus's
vision was interpreted in a quite definite way by the earliest
sources. In 1508, the humanist Karl Bovillus (Charles de
Bouelles) wrote to a friend:
14 Heinrich Woelflin, also called by the Latin form Lupulus, born 1470, humanist
and director of Latin studies at Bern. Cited in Fritz Blanke, Bruder Klaus von
FlHei pp. 92f.
IB Ibid., p. 94.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
I wish to tell you of a vision which appeared to him in the sky, on a
night when the stars were shining and he stood in prayer and con
templation. He saw the head of a human figure with a terrifying
face, full of wrath and threats.16
15
16
This interpretation agrees perfectly with the modern ampli
fication furnished by Revelation ι : 13.17 Nor should we forget
Brother Klaus's other visions, for instance, of Christ in the bear
skin, of God the Father and God the Mother, and of himself as
the Son. They exhibit features which are very undogmatic
indeed.
Traditionally this great vision was brought into connection
with the Trinity picture in the church at Sachseln, and so, like
wise, was the wheel symbolism in the so-called "Pilgrim's
Tract." 18 Brother Klaus, we are told, showed the picture of the
wheel to a visiting pilgrim. Evidently this picture had preoc
cupied him for some time. Blanke is of the opinion that, con
trary to tradition, there is no connection between the vision
and the Trinity picture.19 This scepticism seems to me to go too
far. There must have been some reason for Brother Klaus's
interest in the wheel. Visions like the one he had often cause
mental confusion and disintegration (witness the heart bursting
"into little pieces"). We know from experience that the pro
tective circle, the mandala, is the traditional antidote for chaotic
states of mind. It is therefore only too clear why Brother Klaus
was fascinated by the symbol of the wheel. The interpretation
of the terrifying vision as an experience of God need not be so
wide of the mark either. The connection between the great
vision and the Trinity picture, and of both with the wheelsymbol, therefore seems to me very probable on psychological
grounds.
16 Ein gesichte Bruder Clausen ynn Schweytz und seine deutunge (Wittemberg,
1528), p. 5. Cited in Alban Stoeckli, Ο. M. Cap., Die Visionen des seligen Bruder
Klaus, p. 34.
17 Μ. B. Lavaud, O.P. (Vie Profonde de Nicolas de Flue) gives just as apt a
parallel with a text from the Horologium sapientiae of Henry Suso, where the
apocalyptic Christ appears as an infuriated and wrathful avenger, very much in
contrast to the Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount. [Cf. Suso, Little
Book of Eternal Wisdom, Clark trans., pp. 77-78.—EDITORS.]
18 Ein nutzlicher und loblicher Tractat von Bruder Claus und einem Bilger
(1488).
19 Blanke, pp. 95S.
IO
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
»7
18
19
This vision, undoubtedly fearful and highly perturbing,
which burst like a volcano upon his religious view of the world,
without any dogmatic prelude and without exegetical com
mentary, naturally needed a long labour of assimilation in order
to fit it into the total structure of the psyche and thus restore the
disturbed psychic balance. Brother Klaus came to terms with
his experience on the basis of dogma, then firm as a rock; and
the dogma proved its powers of assimilation by turning some
thing horribly alive into the beautiful abstraction of the Trinity
idea. But the reconciliation might have taken place on a quite
different basis provided by the vision itself and its unearthly
actuality—much to the disadvantage of the Christian conception
of God and no doubt to the still greater disadvantage of Brother
Klaus himself, who would then have become not a saint but a
heretic (if not a lunatic) and would probably have ended his
life at the stake.
This example demonstrates the use of the dogmatic symbol:
it formulates a tremendous and dangerously decisive psychic
experience, fittingly called an "experience of the Divine," in a
way that is tolerable to our human understanding, without
either limiting the scope of the experience or doing damage to
its overwhelming significance. The vision of divine wrath, which
we also meet in Jakob Bohme, ill accords with the God of the
New Testament, the loving Father in heaven, and for this
reason it might easily have become the source of an inner con
flict. That would have been quite in keeping with the spirit of
the age—the end of the fifteenth century, the time of Nicholas
Cusanus, whose formula of the "complexio oppositorum" actu
ally anticipated the schism that was imminent. Not long after
wards the Yahwistic conception of God went through a series of
rebirths in Protestantism. Yahweh is a God-concept that con
tains the opposites in a still undivided state.
Brother Klaus put himself outside the beaten track of con
vention and habit by leaving his home and family, living alone
for years, and gazing deep into the dark mirror, so that the
wondrous and terrible boon of original experience befell him.
In this situation the dogmatic image of divinity that had been
developed over the centuries worked like a healing draught. It
helped him to assimilate the fatal incursion of an archetypal
image and so escape being torn asunder. Angelus Silesius was
Xl
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
not so fortunate; the inner conflict tore him to pieces, because in
his day the stability of the Church that dogma guarantees was
already shattered.
20
Jakob Bohme, too, knew a God of the "Wrath-fire," a real
Deus absconditus. He was able to bridge the profound and
agonizing contradiction on the one hand by means of the Chris
tian formula of Father and Son and embody it speculatively in
his view of the world—which, though Gnostic, was in all essen
tial points Christian, Otherwise he would have become a dualist.
On the other hand it was undoubtedly alchemy, long brewing
the union of opposites in secret, that came to his aid. Neverthe
less the opposition has left obvious traces in the mandala ap
pended to his XL Questions concerning the Soule, 20 showing
the nature of the divinity. The mandala is divided into a dark
and a light half, and the semicircles that are drawn round them,
instead of joining up to form a ring, are turned back to back. 21
21
Dogma takes the place of the collective unconscious by for
mulating its contents on a grand scale. The Catholic way of life
is completely unaware of psychological problems in this sense.
Almost the entire life of the collective unconscious has been
channelled into the dogmatic archetypal ideas and flows along
like a well-controlled stream in the symbolism of creed and rit
ual. It manifests itself in the inwardness of the Catholic psyche.
The collective unconscious, as we understand it today, was
never a matter of "psychology," for before the Christian Church
existed there were the antique mysteries, and these reach back
into the grey mists of neolithic prehistory. Mankind has never
lacked powerful images to lend magical aid against all the un
canny things that live in the depths of the psyche. Always the
figures of the unconscious were expressed in protecting and
healing images and in this way were expelled from the psyche
into cosmic space.
22
The iconoclasm of the Reformation, however, quite literally
made a breach in the protective wall of sacred images, and since
then one image after another has crumbled away. They became
dubious, for they conflicted with awakening reason. Besides,
people had long since forgotten what they meant. Or had they
really forgotten? Could it be that men had never really known
what they meant, and that only in recent times did it occur to
20 London, 1647.
21 Cf, my "Study in the Process of Individuation," infra.
12
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
the Protestant part of mankind that actually we haven't the re
motest conception of what is meant by the Virgin Birth, the
divinity of Christ, and the complexities of the Trinity? It al
most seems as if these images had just lived, and as if their
living existence had simply been accepted without question and
without reflection, much as everyone decorates Christmas trees
or hides Easter eggs without ever knowing what these customs
mean. The fact is that archetypal images are so packed with
meaning in themselves that people never think of asking what
they really do mean. That the gods die from time to time is due
to man's sudden discovery that they do not mean anything, that
they are made by human hands, useless idols of wood and stone.
In reality, however, he has merely discovered that up till then
he has never thought about his images at all. And when he starts
thinking about them, he does so with the help of what he calls
"reason"—which in point of fact is nothing more than the sumtotal of all his prejudices and myopic views.
aS
The history of Protestantism has been one of chronic iconoclasm. One wall after another fell. And the work of destruction
was not too difficult once the authority of the Church had been
shattered. We all know how, in large things as in small, in gen
eral as well as in particular, piece after piece collapsed, and how
the alarming poverty of symbols that is now the condition of our
life came about. With that the power of the Church has van
ished too—a fortress robbed of its bastions and casemates, a
house whose walls have been plucked away, exposed to all the
winds of the world and to all dangers.
24
Although this is, properly speaking, a lamentable collapse
that offends our sense of history, the disintegration of Protes
tantism into nearly four hundred denominations is yet a sure
sign that the restlessness continues. The Protestant is cast out
into a state of defencelessness that might well make the natural
man shudder. His enlightened consciousness, of course, refuses
to take cognizance of this fact, and is quietly looking elsewhere
for what has been lost to Europe. We seek the effective images,
the thought-forms that satisfy the restlessness of heart and mind,
and we find the treasures of the East.
25
There is no objection to this, in and for itself. Nobody forced
the Romans to import Asiatic cults in bulk. If Christianity had
really been—as so often described—"alien" to the Germanic
IB
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
tribes, they could easily have rejected it when the prestige of
the Roman legions began to wane. But Christianity had come
to stay, because it fits in with the existing archetypal pattern. In
the course of the centuries, however, it turned into something
its founder might well have wondered at had he lived to see it;
and the Christianity of Negroes and other dark-skinned con
verts is certainly an occasion for historical reflections. Why,
then, should the West not assimilate Eastern forms? The Ro
mans too went to Eleusis, Samothrace, and Egypt in order to get
themselves initiated. In Egypt there even seems to have been a
regular tourist trade in this commodity.
26
The gods of Greece and Rome perished from the same dis
ease as did our Christian symbols: people discovered then, as
today, that they had no thoughts whatever on the subject. On
the other hand, the gods of the strangers still had unexhausted
mana. Their names were weird and incomprehensible and their
deeds portentously dark—something altogether different from
the hackneyed chronique scandaleuse of Olympus. At least one
couldn't understand the Asiatic symbols, and for this reason
they were not banal like the conventional gods. The fact that
people accepted the new as unthinkingly as they had rejected
the old did not become a problem at that time.
27
Is it becoming a problem today? Shall we be able to put on,
like a new suit of clothes, ready-made symbols grown on foreign
soil, saturated with foreign blood, spoken in a foreign tongue,
nourished by a foreign culture, interwoven with foreign history,
and so resemble a beggar who wraps himself in kingly raiment,
a king who disguises himself as a beggar? No doubt this is pos
sible. Or is there something in ourselves that commands us to
go in for no mummeries, but perhaps even to sew our garment
ourselves?
28
I am convinced that the growing impoverishment of symbols
has a meaning. It is a development that has an inner consistency.
Everything that we have not thought about, and that has there
fore been deprived of a meaningful connection with our de
veloping consciousness, has got lost. If we now try to cover our
nakedness with the gorgeous trappings of the East, as the theosophists do, we would be playing our own history false. A man
does not sink down to beggary only to pose afterwards as an
Indian potentate. It seems to me that it would be far better
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
stoutly to avow our spiritual poverty, our symbol-lessness, in
stead of feigning a legacy to which we are not the legitimate
heirs at all. We are, surely, the rightful heirs of Christian sym
bolism, but somehow we have squandered this heritage. We
have let the house our fathers built fall into decay, and now we
try to break into Oriental palaces that our fathers never knew.
Anyone who has lost the historical symbols and cannot be satis
fied with substitutes is certainly in a very difficult position
today: before him there yawns the void, and he turns away from
it in horror. What is worse, the vacuum gets filled with absurd
political and social ideas, which one and all are distinguished
by their spiritual bleakness. But if he cannot get along with
these pedantic dogmatisms, he sees himself forced to be serious
for once with his alleged trust in God, though it usually turns
out that his fear of things going wrong if he did so is even more
persuasive. This fear is far from unjustified, for where God is
closest the danger seems greatest. It is dangerous to avow spirit
ual poverty, for the poor man has desires, and whoever has
desires calls down some fatality on himself. A Swiss proverb puts
it drastically: "Behind every rich man stands a devil, and behind
every poor man two."
29
Just as in Christianity the vow of worldly poverty turned the
mind away from the riches of this earth, so spiritual poverty
seeks to renounce the false riches of the spirit in order to with
draw not only from the sorry remnants—which today call them
selves the Protestant church—of a great past, but also from all
the allurements of the odorous East; in order, finally, to dwell
with itself alone, where, in the cold light of consciousness, the
blank barrenness of the world reaches to the very stars.
3°
We have inherited this poverty from our fathers. I well re
member the confirmation lessons I received at the hands of my
own father. The catechism bored me unspeakably. One day I
was turning over the pages of my little book, in the hope of
finding something interesting, when my eye fell on the para
graphs about the Trinity. This interested me at once, and I
waited impatiently for the lessons to get to that section. But
when the longed-for lesson arrived, my father said: "We'll skip
this bit; I can't make head or tail of it myself." With that my
last hope was laid in the grave. I admired my father's honesty,
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
but this did not alter the fact that from then on all talk of re
ligion bored me to death.
31
Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but
in the meantime our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair.
We are absolutely convinced that even with the aid of the latest
and largest reflecting telescope, now being built in America,
men will discover behind the farthest nebulae no fiery empy
rean; and we know that our eyes will wander despairingly
through the dead emptiness of interstellar space. Nor is it any
better when mathematical physics reveals to us the world of the
infinitely small. In the end we dig up the wisdom of all ages and
peoples, only to find that everything most dear and precious to
us has already been said in the most superb language. Like
greedy children we stretch out our hands and think that, if only
we could grasp it, we would possess it too. But what we possess
is no longer valid, and our hands grow weary from the grasping,
for riches lie everywhere, as far as the eye can reach. All these
possessions turn to water, and more than one sorcerer's appren
tice has been drowned in the waters called up by himself—if he
did not first succumb to the saving delusion that this wisdom
was good and that was bad. It is from these adepts that there
come those terrifying invalids who think they have a prophetic
mission. For the artificial sundering of true and false wisdom
creates a tension in the psyche, and from this there arises a lone
liness and a craving like that of the morphine addict, who al
ways hopes to find companions in his vice.
32
When our natural inheritance has been dissipated, then the
spirit too, as Heraclitus says, has descended from its fiery heights.
But when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water, and with
Luciferian presumption the intellect usurps the seat where once
the spirit was enthroned. The spirit may legitimately claim the
patria potestas over the soul; not so the earth-born intellect,
which is man's sword or hammer, and not a creator of spiritual
worlds, a father of the soul. Hence Ludwig Klages 22 and Max
Scheler 23 were moderate enough in their attempts to rehabili
tate the spirit, for both were children of an age in which the
spirit was no longer up above but down below, no longer fire
but water.
22 [Cf. Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele.]
23 [Cf., e.g., Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos.—EDITORS.]
16
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
33
Therefore the way of the soul in search of its lost fatherlike Sophia seeking Bythos—leads to the water, to the dark mir
ror that reposes at its bottom. Whoever has elected for the
state of spiritual poverty, the true heritage of Protestantism
carried to its logical conclusion, goes the way of the soul that
leads to the water. This water is no figure of speech, but a living
symbol of the dark psyche. I can best illustrate this by a con
crete example, one out of many:
34
A Protestant theologian often dreamed the same dream: He
stood on a mountain slope with a deep valley beloiv, and in it a
dark lake. He knew in the dream that something had ahuays
prevented him from approaching the lake. This time he resolved
to go to the water. As he approached the shore, everything grew
dark and uncannyand a gust of wind suddenly rushed over the
face of the water. He was seized by a panic fear, and awoke.
35
This dream shows us the natural symbolism. The dreamer
descends into his own depths, and the way leads him to the
mysterious water. And now there occurs the miracle of the pool
of Bethesda: an angel comes down and touches the water, en
dowing it with healing power. In the dream it is the wind, the
pneuma, which bloweth where it listeth. Man's descent to the
water is needed in order to evoke the miracle of its coming to
life. But the breath of the spirit rushing over the dark water is
uncanny, like everything whose cause we do not know—since it
is not ourselves. It hints at an unseen presence, a numen to
which neither human expectations nor the machinations of the
will have given life. It lives of itself, and a shudder runs through
the man who thought that "spirit" was merely what he believes,
what he makes himself, what is said in books, or what people
talk about. But when it happens spontaneously it is a spookish
thing, and primitive fear seizes the naive mind. The elders of
the Elgonyi tribe in Kenya gave me exactly the same description
of the nocturnal god whom they call the "maker of fear." "He
comes to you," they said, "like a cold gust of wind, and you
shudder, or he goes whistling round in the tall grass"—an Afri
can Pan who glides among the reeds in the haunted noontide
hour, playing on his pipes and frightening the shepherds.
S6
Thus, in the dream, the breath of the pneuma frightened
another pastor, a shepherd of the flock, who in the darkness of
the night trod the reed-grown shore in the deep valley of the
THE ARCHETirPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
37
38
39
4°
psyche. Yes, that erstwhile fiery spirit has made a descent to the
realm of nature, to the trees and rocks and the waters of
the psyche, like the old man in Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who,
wearied of humankind, withdrew into the forest to growl with
the bears in honour of the Creator.
We must surely go the way of the waters, which always tend
downward, if we would raise up the treasure, the precious herit
age of the father. In the Gnostic hymn to the soul, 24 the son is
sent forth by his parents to seek the pearl that fell from the
King's crown. It lies at the bottom of a deep well, guarded by a
dragon, in the land of the Egyptians—that land of fleshpots and
drunkenness with all its material and spiritual riches. The son
and heir sets out to fetch the jewel, but forgets himself and his
task in the orgies of Egyptian worldliness, until a letter from his
father reminds him what his duty is. He then sets out for the
water and plunges into the dark depths of the well, where he
finds the pearl on the bottom, and in the end offers it to the
highest divinity.
This hymn, ascribed to Bardesanes, dates from an age that
resembled ours in more than one respect. Mankind looked and
waited, and it was a fish—"levatus de profundo" (drawn from the
deep) 25 —that became the symbol of the saviour, the bringer of
healing.
As I wrote these lines, I received a letter from Vancouver,
from a person unknown to me. The writer is puzzled by his
dreams, which are always about water: "Almost every time I
dream it is about water: either I am having a bath, or the watercloset is overflowing, or a pipe is bursting, or my home has
drifted down to the water's edge, or I see an acquaintance about
to sink into water, or I am trying to get out of water, or I am
having a bath and the tub is about to overflow," etc.
Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The
lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were,
underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the
"subconscious," usually with the pejorative connotation of an
inferior consciousness. Water is the "valley spirit," the water
dragon of Tao f whose nature resembles water—a yang embraced
in the yin. Psychologically, therefore, water means spirit that
24 James, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 411-15.
25 Augustine, Confessions, Lib. XIII, cap. XXI.
18
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
has become unconscious. So the dream of the theologian is quite
right in telling him that down by the water he could experience
the working of the living spirit like a miracle of healing in the
pool of Bethesda. The descent into the depths always seems to
precede the ascent. Thus another theologian 2 0 dreamed that he
saw on a mountain a kind of Castle of the Grail. He went along
a road that seemed to lead straight to the foot of the mountain
and up it. But as he drew nearer he discovered to his great dis
appointment that a chasm separated him from the mountain, a
deep, darksome gorge with underworldly water rushing along
the bottom. A steep path led downwards and toilsomely climbed
up again on the other side. But the prospect looked uninviting,
and the dreamer awoke. Here again the dreamer, thirsting for
the shining heights, had first to descend into the dark depths,
and this proves to be the indispensable condition for climbing
any higher. The prudent man avoids the danger lurking in
these depths, but he also throws away the good which a bold but
imprudent venture might bring.
41
The statement made by the dream meets with violent re
sistance from the conscious mind, which knows "spirit" only as
something to be found in the heights. "Spirit" always seems to
come from above, while from below comes everything that is
sordid and worthless. For people who think in this way, spirit
means highest freedom, a soaring over the depths, deliverance
from the prison of the chthonic world, and hence a refuge for all
those timorous souls who do not want to become anything dif
ferent. But water is earthy and tangible, it is also the fluid of
the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the
odour of the beast, carnality heavy with passion. The uncon
scious is the psyche that reaches down from the daylight of
mentally and morally lucid consciousness into the nervous sys
tem that for ages has been known as the "sympathetic." This
does not govern perception and muscular activity like the
cerebrospinal system, and thus control the environment; but,
though functioning without sense-organs, it maintains the bal
ance of life and, through the mysterious paths of sympathetic
26 The fact that it was another theologian who dreamed this dream is not so sur
prising, since priests and clergymen have a professional interest in the motif of
"ascent." They have to speak of it so often that the question naturally arises as to
what they are doing about their own spiritual ascent.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
excitation, not only gives us knowledge of the innermost
life of other beings but also has an inner effect upon them. In
this sense it is an extremely collective system, the operative basis
of all participation mystique, whereas the cerebrospinal function
reaches its high point in separating off the specific qualities of
the ego, and only apprehends surfaces and externals—always
through the medium of space. It experiences everything as an
outside, whereas the sympathetic system experiences everything
as an inside.
42
The unconscious is commonly regarded as a sort of incapsulated fragment of our most personal and intimate life—some
thing like what the Bible calls the "heart" and considers the
source of all evil thoughts. In the chambers of the heart dwell
the wicked blood-spirits, swift anger and sensual weakness. This
is how the unconscious looks when seen from the conscious side.
But consciousness appears to be essentially an affair of the cere
brum, which sees everything separately and in isolation, and
therefore sees the unconscious in this way too, regarding it out
right as my unconscious. Hence it is generally believed that
anyone who descends into the unconscious gets into a suffocat
ing atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity, and in this blind
alley is exposed to the attack of all the ferocious beasts which the
caverns of the psychic underworld are supposed to harbour.
43
True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see
first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a con
frontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faith
fully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never
show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the
mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and
shows the true face.
44
This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner
way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting
with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can
be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into
the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and
can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has
already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal
unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and
therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued
out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness. This problem
20
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
45
is exceedingly difficult, because it not only challenges the whole
man, but reminds him at the same time of his helplessness and
ineffectuality, Strong natures—or should one rather call them
weak?—do not like to be reminded of this, but prefer to think of
themselves as heroes who are beyond good and evil, and to
cut the Gordian knot instead of untying it. Nevertheless, the
account has to be settled sooner or later. In the end one has to
admit that there are problems which one simply cannot solve on
one's own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of
being honest, truthful, and in accord with reality, and this pre
pares the ground for a compensatory reaction from the collec
tive unconscious: you are now more inclined to give heed to a
helpful idea or intuition, or to notice thoughts which had not
been allowed to voice themselves before. Perhaps you will pay
attention to the dreams that visit you at such moments, or will
reflect on certain inner and outer occurrences that take place
just at this time. If you have an attitude of this kind, then the
helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man's nature
can come awake and intervene, for helplessness and weakness
are the eternal experience and the eternal problem of mankind.
To this problem there is also an eternal answer, otherwise it
would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have
done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that
remains is what you could still do if only you knew it. But how
much do we know of ourselves? Precious little, to judge by
experience. Hence there is still a great deal of room left for the
unconscious. Prayer, as we know, calls for a very similar attitude
and therefore has much the same effect.
The necessary and needful reaction from the collective un
conscious expresses itself in archetypally formed ideas. The
meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one's own
shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose
painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep
well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who
one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a
boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with
apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no
here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad.
It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where
the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything
21
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I
experience the other in myself and the other -than-myself expe
riences me.
46
No, the collective unconscious is anything but an incapsulated personal system; it is sheer objectivity, as wide as the world
and open to all the world. There I am the object of every sub
ject, in complete reversal of my ordinary consciousness, where I
am always the subject that has an object. There I am utterly one
with the world, so much a part of it that I forget all too easily
who I really am. "Lost in oneself" is a good way of describing
this state. But this self is the world, if only a consciousness could
see it. That is why we must know who we are.
47
The unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it—we
become unconscious of ourselves. That is the age-old danger,
instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself
stands so very close to this pleroma. His consciousness is still un
certain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just
emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may
easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does
things that are strange to him. Hence primitives are afraid of un
controlled emotions, because consciousness breaks down under
them and gives way to possession. All man's strivings have there
fore been directed towards the consolidation of consciousness.
This was the purpose of rite and dogma; they were dams and
walls to keep back the dangers of the unconscious, the "perils of
the soul." Primitive rites consist accordingly in the exorcizing
of spirits, the lifting of spells, the averting of the evil omen,
propitiation, purification, and the production by sympathetic
magic of helpful occurrences.
48
It is these barriers, erected in primitive times, that later be
came the foundations of the Church. It is also these barriers
that collapse when the symbols become weak with age. Then the
waters rise and boundless catastrophes break over mankind.
The religious leader of the Taos pueblo, known as the Loco
Tenente Gobernador, once said to me: "The Americans should
stop meddling with our religion, for when it dies and we can no
longer help the sun our Father to cross the sky, the Americans
and the whole world will learn something in ten years' time, for
then the sun won't rise any more." In other words, night will
22
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
fall, the light of consciousness is extinguished, and the dark sea
of the unconscious breaks in.
49
Whether primitive or not, mankind always stands on the
brink of actions it performs itself but does not control. The
whole world wants peace and the whole world prepares for war,
to take but one example. Mankind is powerless against man
kind, and the gods, as ever, show it the ways of fate. Today we
call the gods "factors," which comes from facere, 'to make." The
makers stand behind the wings of the world-theatre. It is so in
great things as in small. In the realm of consciousness we are
our own masters; we seem to be the "factors" themselves. But if
we step through the door of the shadow we discover with terror
that we are the objects of unseen factors. To know this is de
cidedly unpleasant, for nothing is more disillusioning than the
discovery of our own inadequacy. It can even give rise to primi
tive panic, because, instead of being believed in, the anxiously
guarded supremacy of consciousness—which is in truth one of
the secrets of human success—is questioned in the most dan
gerous way. But since ignorance is no guarantee of security, and
in fact only makes our insecurity still worse, it is probably bet
ter despite our fear to know where the danger lies. To ask the
right question is already half the solution of a problem. At any
rate we then know that the greatest danger threatening us comes
from the unpredictability of the psyche's reactions. Discerning
persons have realized for some time that external historical con
ditions, of whatever kind, are only occasions, jumping-off
grounds, for the real dangers that threaten our lives. These are
the present politico-social delusional systems. We should not re
gard them causally, as necessary consequences of external condi
tions, but as decisions precipitated by the collective unconscious.
50
This is a new problem. All ages before us have believed in
gods in some form or other. Only an unparalleled impoverish
ment of symbolism could enable us to rediscover the gods as
psychic factors, that is, as archetypes of the unconscious. No
doubt this discovery is hardly credible at present. To be con
vinced, we need to have the experience pictured in the dream of
the theologian, for only then do we experience the self-activity
of the spirit moving over the waters. Since the stars have fallen
from heaven and our highest symbols have paled, a secret life
holds sway in the unconscious. That is why we have a psychology
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
today, and why we speak of the unconscious. All this would be
quite superfluous in an age or culture that possessed symbols.
Symbols are spirit from above, and under those conditions the
spirit is above too. Therefore it would be a foolish and sense
less undertaking for such people to wish to experience or investi
gate an unconscious that contains nothing but the silent,
undisturbed sway of nature. Our unconscious, on the other
hand, hides living water, spirit that has become nature, and
that is why it is disturbed. Heaven has become for us the
cosmic space of the physicists, and the divine empyrean a fair
memory of things that once were. But "the heart glows," and a
secret unrest gnaws at the roots of our being. In the words of
the Voluspa we may ask:
What murmurs Wotan over Mimir's head?
Already the spring boils . . .
5»
Our concern with the unconscious has become a vital ques
tion for us—a question of spiritual being or non-being. All those
who have had an experience like that mentioned in the dream
know that the treasure lies in the depths of the water and will
try to salvage it. As they must never forget who they are, they
must on no account imperil their consciousness. They will keep
their standpoint firmly anchored to the earth, and will thus—to
preserve the metaphor—become fishers who catch with hook and
net what swims in the water. There may be consummate fools
who do not understand what fishermen do, but the latter will
not mistake the timeless meaning of their action, for the symbol
of their craft is many centuries older than the still unfaded story
of the Grail. But not every man is a fisherman. Sometimes this
figure remains arrested at an early, instinctive level, and then it
is an otter, as we know from Oskar Schmitz's fairytales.27
52
Whoever looks into the water sees his own image, but behind
it living creatures soon loom up; fishes, presumably, harmless
dwellers of the deep—harmless, if only the lake were not
haunted. They are water-beings of a peculiar sort. Sometimes a
nixie gets into the fisherman's net, a female, half-human fish.28
27 [The "Fischottermarchen" in Marchen aus dem Unbewussten, pp. i^fL,
4gff.—EDITORS.]
28 Cf. Paracelsus, De vita longa (1562), and my commentary in "Paracelsus as a
Spiritual Phenomenon" [concerning Melusina, pars. 179^. aigS-J·
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Nixies are entrancing creatures:
Half drew she him,
Half sank he down
And nevermore was seen.
53
The nixie is an even more instinctive version of a magical
feminine being whom I call the anima. She can also be a siren,
melusina (mermaid), 20 wood-nymph, Grace, or Erlking's daugh
ter, or a lamia or succubus, who infatuates young men and sucks
the life out of them. Moralizing critics will say that these figures
are projections of soulful emotional states and are nothing but
worthless fantasies. One must admit that there is a certain
amount of truth in this. But is it the whole truth? Is the nixie
really nothing but a product of moral laxity? Were there not
such beings long ago, in an age when dawning human conscious
ness was still wholly bound to nature? Surely there were spirits
of forest, field, and stream long before the question of moral
conscience ever existed. What is more, these beings were as
much dreaded as adored, so that their rather peculiar erotic
charms were only one of their characteristics. Man's conscious
ness was then far simpler, and his possession of it absurdly small.
An unlimited amount of what we now feel to be an integral part
of our psychic being disports itself merrily for the primitive in
projections ranging far and wide.
54
The word "projection" is not really appropriate, for nothing
has been cast out of the psyche; rather, the psyche has attained
its present complexity by a series of acts of introjection. Its com
plexity has increased in proportion to the despiritualization of
nature. An alluring nixie from the dim bygone is today called
an "erotic fantasy," and she may complicate our psychic life in
a most painful way. She comes upon us just as a nixie might;
she sits on top of us like a succubus; she changes into all sorts
of shapes like a witch, and in general displays an unbearable
independence that does not seem at all proper in a psychic
2® Cf. the picture of the adept in Liber mutus (1677) (fig. 13 in The Practice of
Psychotherapy, p. 320). He is fishing, and has caught a nixie. His soror mystica,
however, catches birds in her net, symbolizing the animus. The idea of the anima
often turns up in the literature of the 16th and 17th cent., for instance in Richardus Vitus, Aldrovandus, and the commentator of the Tractatus aureus. Cf.
"The Enigma of Bologna" in my Mysterium Coniunctionis, pars. 5iff.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
content. Occasionally she causes states of fascination that rival
the best bewitchment, or unleashes terrors in us not to be out
done by any manifestation of the devil. She is a mischievous
being who crosses our path in numerous transformations and
disguises, playing all kinds of tricks on us, causing happy and
unhappy delusions, depressions and ecstasies, outbursts of af
fect, etc. Even in a state of reasonable introjection the nixie
has not laid aside her roguery. The witch has not ceased to mix
her vile potions of love and death; her magic poison has been
refined into intrigue and self-deception, unseen though none
the less dangerous for that.
55
But how do we dare to call this elfin being the "anima"?
Anima means soul and should designate something very wonder
ful and immortal. Yet this was not always so. We should not
forget that this kind of soul is a dogmatic conception whose pur
pose it is to pin down and capture something uncannily alive
and active. The German word Seele is closely related, via the
Gothic form saiwalo, to the Greek word αίόλος, which means
'quick-moving,' 'changeful of hue,' 'twinkling,' something like
a butterfly— ψνχή in Greek—which reels drunkenly from flower
to flower and lives on honey and love. In Gnostic typology the
άνθρωποι ψυχικό?, 'psychic man,' is inferior to the π νηματικός,
'spiritual man,' and finally there are wicked souls who must
roast in hell for all eternity. Even the quite innocent soul of the
unbaptized newborn babe is deprived of the contemplation of
God. Among primitives, the soul is the magic breath of life
(hence the term "anima"), or a flame. An uncanonical saying of
our Lord's aptly declares: "Whoso is near unto me is near to the
fire." For Heraclitus the soul at the highest level is fiery and dry,
because ψνχή as such is closely akin to "cool breath"— ψνχίΐν means
'to breathe,' 'to blow'; ψυχρός and ψύχος mean 'cold,' 'chill,'
'damp.'
56
Being that has soul is living being. Soul is the living thing
in man, that which lives of itself and causes life. Therefore God
breathed into Adam a living breath, that he might live. With
her cunning play of illusions the soul lures into life the inert
ness of matter that does not want to live. She makes us believe
incredible things, that life may be lived. She is full of snares and
traps, in order that man should fall, should reach the earth,
entangle himself there, and stay caught, so that life should be
26
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
lived; as Eve in the garden of Eden could not rest content until
she had convinced Adam of the goodness of the forbidden apple.
Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man
would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness. 30 A certain kind
of reasonableness is its advocate, and a certain kind of morality
adds its blessing. But to have soul is the whole venture of life,
for soul is a life-giving daemon who plays his elfin game above
and below human existence, for which reason—in the realm of
dogma—he is threatened and propitiated with superhuman pun
ishments and blessings that go far beyond the possible deserts of
human beings. Heaven and hell are the fates meted out to the
soul and not to civilized man, who in his nakedness and timidity
would have no idea of what to do with himself in a heavenly
Jerusalem.
57
The anima is not the soul in the dogmatic sense, not an
anima rationalis, which is a philosophical conception, but a
natural archetype that satisfactorily sums up all the statements
of the unconscious, of the primitive mind, of the history of lan
guage and religion. It is a "factor" in the proper sense of the
word. Man cannot make it; on the contrary, it is always the
a priori element in his moods, reactions, impulses, and what
ever else is spontaneous in psychic life. It is something that lives
of itself, that makes us live; it is a life behind consciousness that
cannot be completely integrated with it, but from which, on the
contrary, consciousness arises. For, in the last analysis, psychic
life is for the greater part an unconscious life that surrounds
consciousness on all sides—a notion that is sufficiently obvious
when one considers how much unconscious preparation is
needed, for instance, to register a sense-impression.
58
Although it seems as if the whole of our unconscious psychic
life could be ascribed to the anima, she is yet only one archetype
among many. Therefore, she is not characteristic of the uncon
scious in its entirety. She is only one of its aspects. This is shown
by the very fact of her femininity. What is not-I, not masculine,
is most probably feminine, and because the not-I is felt as not
belonging to me and therefore as outside me, the anima-image
is usually projected upon women. Either sex is inhabited by the
opposite sex up to a point, for, biologically speaking, it is simply
the greater number of masculine genes that tips the scales in
30 La Rochefoucauld, Pensies DLX. Quoted in Symbols of Transformation, p.
27
174.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
favour of masculinity. The smaller number of feminine genes
seems to form a feminine character, which usually remains un
conscious because of its subordinate position.
59
With the archetype of the anima we enter the realm of the
gods, or rather, the realm that metaphysics has reserved for itself.
Everything the anima touches becomes numinous—uncondi
tional, dangerous, taboo, magical. She is the serpent in the para
dise of the harmless man with good resolutions and still better
intentions. She affords the most convincing reasons for not pry
ing into the unconscious, an occupation that would break down
our moral inhibitions and unleash forces that had better been
left unconscious and undisturbed. As usual, there is something
in what the anima says; for life in itself is not good only, it is also
bad. Because the anima wants life, she wants both good and bad.
These categories do not exist in the elfin realm. Bodily life as
well as psychic life have the impudence to get along much better
without conventional morality, and they often remain the
healthier for it.
60
The anima believes in the καλόν κάγαθόν, the 'beautiful and
the good,' a primitive conception that antedates the discovery of
the conflict between aesthetics and morals. It took more than a
thousand years of Christian differentiation to make it clear that
the good is not always the beautiful and the beautiful not neces
sarily good. The paradox of this marriage of ideas troubled the
ancients as little as it does the primitives. The anima is con
servative and clings in the most exasperating fashion to the ways
of earlier humanity. She likes to appear in historic dress, with
a predilection for Greece and Egypt. In this connection we
would mention the classic anima stories of Rider Haggard and
Pierre Benoit. The Renaissance dream known as the Ipnerotomachia of Poliphilo, 31 and Goethe's Faust, likewise reach deep
into antiquity in order to find "le vrai mot" for the situation.
PoIiphilo conjured up Queen Venus; Goethe, Helen of Troy.
Aniela Jaffe 32 has sketched a lively picture of the anima in the
age of Biedermeier and the Romantics. If you want to know
what happens when the anima appears in modern society, I can
warmly recommend John Erskine's Private Life of Helen of
31 Cf. The Dream of Poliphilo t ed. by Linda Fierz-David. [For Haggard and
Benoit, see the bibliography.—EDITORS.]
32 "Bilder und Symbole aus Ε. T. A. Hoffmanns Marchen "Der GoIdne Topf.' "
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Troy. She is not a shallow creation, for the breath of eternity
lies over everything that is really alive. The anima lives beyond
all categories, and can therefore dispense with blame as well as
with praise. Since the beginning of time man, with his whole
some animal instinct, has been engaged in combat with his soul
and its daemonism. If the soul were uniformly dark it would
be a simple matter. Unfortunately this is not so, for the anima
can appear also as an angel of light, a psychopomp who points
the way to the highest meaning, as we know from Faust.
If the encounter with the shadow is the "apprentice-piece"
in the individual's development, then that with the anima is the
"master-piece." The relation with the anima is again a test of
courage, an ordeal by fire for the spiritual and moral forces of
man. We should never forget that in dealing with the anima we
are dealing with psychic facts which have never been in man's
possession before, since they were always found "outside" his
psychic territory, so to speak, in the form of projections. For the
son, the anima is hidden in the dominating power of the mother,
and sometimes she leaves him with a sentimental attachment
that lasts throughout life and seriously impairs the fate of the
adult. On the other hand, she may spur him on to the highest
flights. To the men of antiquity the anima appeared as a goddess
or a witch, while for medieval man the goddess was replaced by
the Queen of Heaven and Mother Church. The desymbolized
world of the Protestant produced first an unhealthy sentimen
tality and then a sharpening of the moral conflict, which, be
cause it was so unbearable, led logically to Nietzsche's "beyond
good and evil." In centres of civilization this state shows itself
in the increasing insecurity of marriage. The American divorce
rate has been reached, if not exceeded, in many European coun
tries, which proves that the anima projects herself by preference
on the opposite sex, thus giving rise to magically complicated
relationships. This fact, largely because of its pathological conse
quences, has led to the growth of modern psychology, which in
its Freudian form cherishes the belief that the essential cause of
all disturbances is sexuality—a view that only exacerbates the al
ready existing conflict. 38 There is a confusion here between
cause and effect. The sexual disturbance is by no means the
cause of neurotic difficulties, but is, like these, one of the patho83 I have expounded my views at some length in "Psychology of the Transference.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
logical effects of a maladaptation of consciousness, as when con
sciousness is faced with situations and tasks to which it is not
equal. Such a person simply does not understand how the world
has altered, and what his attitude would have to be in order to
adapt to it.
62
In dealing with the shadow or anima it is not sufficient just
to know about these concepts and to reflect on them. Nor can
we ever experience their content by feeling our way into them
or by appropriating other people's feelings. It is no use at all to
learn a list of archetypes by heart. Archetypes are complexes of
experience that come upon us like fate, and their effects are felt
in our most personal life. The anima no longer crosses our path
as a goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misad
venture, or perhaps as our best venture. When, for instance, a
highly esteemed professor in his seventies abandons his family
and runs off with a young red-headed actress, we know that the
gods have claimed another victim. This is how daemonic power
reveals itself to us. Until not so long ago it would have been an
easy matter to do away with the young woman as a witch.
63
In my experience there are very many people of intelligence
and education who have no trouble in grasping the idea of the
anima and her relative autonomy, and can also understand the
phenomenology of the animus in women. Psychologists have
more difficulties to overcome in this respect, probably because
they are under no compulsion to grapple with the complex facts
peculiar to the psychology of the unconscious. If they are doctors
as well, their somato-psychological thinking gets in the way,
with its assumption that psychological processes can be ex
pressed in intellectual, biological, or physiological terms. Psy
chology, however, is neither biology nor physiology nor any
other science than just this knowledge of the psyche.
64
The picture I have drawn of the anima so far is not com
plete. Although she may be the chaotic urge to life, something
strangely meaningful clings to her, a secret knowledge or hidden
wisdom, which contrasts most curiously with her irrational elfin
nature. Here I would like to refer again to the authors already
cited. Rider Haggard calls She "Wisdom's Daughter"; Benoit's
Queen of Atlantis has an excellent library that even contains a
lost book of Plato. Helen of Troy 5 in her reincarnation, is
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
rescued from a Tyrian brothel by the wise Simon Magus and
accompanies him on his travels. I purposely refrained from men
tioning this thoroughly characteristic aspect of the anima earlier,
because the first encounter with her usually leads one to infer
anything rather than wisdom. 34 This aspect appears only to the
person who gets to grips with her seriously. Only then, when
this hard task has been faced, 35 does he come to realize more
and more that behind all her cruel sporting with human fate
there lies something like a hidden purpose which seems to re
flect a superior knowledge of life's laws. It is just the most un
expected, the most terrifyingly chaotic things which reveal
a deeper meaning. And the more this meaning is recognized,
the more the anima loses her impetuous and compulsive char
acter. Gradually breakwaters are built against the surging of
chaos, and the meaningful divides itself from the meaningless.
When sense and nonsense are no longer identical, the force of
chaos is weakened by their subtraction; sense is then endued
with the force of meaning, and nonsense with the force of meaninglessness. In this way a new cosmos arises. This is not a new
discovery in the realm of medical psychology, but the age-old
truth that out of the richness of a man's experience there comes
a teaching which the father can pass on to the son. 36
65
In elfin nature wisdom and folly appear as one and the same;
and they are one and the same as long as they are acted out by
the anima. Life is crazy and meaningful at once. And when we
do not laugh over the one aspect and speculate about the other,
life is exceedingly drab, and everything is reduced to the littlest
scale. There is then little sense and little nonsense either. When
you come to think about it, nothing has any meaning, for when
there was nobody to think, there was nobody to interpret what
happened. Interpretations are only for those who don't under
stand; it is only the things we don't understand that have any
meaning. Man woke up in a world he did not understand, and
that is why he tries to interpret it.
34 I am referring here to literary examples that are generally accessible and not to
clinical material. These are quite sufficient for our purpose.
35 I.e., coming to terms with the contents of the collective unconscious in general.
This is the great task of the integration process.
38 A good example is the little book by Gustav Schmaltz, Ostliche WeisAtfii und
Westliche Psychotherapie.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
66
Thus the anima and life itself are meaningless in so far as
they offer no interpretation. Yet they have a nature that can be
interpreted, for in all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a
secret order, in all caprice a fixed law, for everything that works
is grounded on its opposite. It takes man's discriminating under
standing, which breaks everything down, into antinomial judg
ments, to recognize this. Once he comes to grips with the anima,
her chaotic capriciousness will give him cause to suspect a secret
order, to sense a plan, a meaning, a purpose over and above her
nature, or even—we might almost be tempted to say—to "postu
late" such a thing, though this would not be in accord with the
truth. For in actual reality we do not have at our command
any power of cool reflection, nor does any science or philosophy
help us, and the traditional teachings of religion do so only to
a limited degree. We are caught and entangled in aimless expe
rience, and the judging intellect with its categories proves itself
powerless. Human interpretation fails, for a turbulent life-situa
tion has arisen that refuses to fit any of the traditional meanings
assigned to it. It is a moment of collapse. We sink into a final
depth—Apuleius calls it "a kind of voluntary death." It is a
surrender of our own powers, not artificially willed but forced
upon us by nature; not a voluntary submission and humiliation
decked in moral garb but an utter and unmistakable defeat
crowned with the panic fear of demoralization. Only when all
props and crutches are broken, and no cover from the rear offers
even the slightest hope of security, does it become possible for us
to experience an archetype that up till then had lain hidden
behind the meaningful nonsense played out by the anima. This
is the archetype of meaning, just as the anima is the archetype
of life itself.
67
It always seems to us as if meaning—compared with lifewere the younger event, because we assume, with some justifica
tion, that we assign it of ourselves, and because we believe,
equally rightly no doubt, that the great world can get along
without being interpreted. But how do we assign meaning?
From what source, in the last analysis, do we derive meaning?
The forms we use for assigning meaning are historical categories
that reach back into the mists of time—a fact we do not take
sufficiently into account. Interpretations make use of certain
linguistic matrices that are themselves derived from primordial
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
images. From whatever side we approach this question, every
where we find ourselves confronted with the history of language,
with images and motifs that lead straight back to the primitive
wonder-world.
68
Take, for instance, the word "idea." It goes back to the
eiSos concept of Plato, and the eternal ideas are primordial
images stored up Iv vnepovpavua τοπω (in a supracelestial place) as
eternal, transcendent forms. The eye of the seer perceives them
as "imagines et lares," or as images in dreams and revelatory
visions. Or let us take the concept of energy, which is an in
terpretation of physical events. In earlier times it was the secret
fire of the alchemists, or phlogiston, or the heat-force inherent
in matter, like the "primal warmth" of the Stoics, or the Heraclitean πνρ άά ζώον (ever-living fire), which borders on the primi
tive notion of an all-pervading vital force, a power of growth
and magic healing that is generally called mana.
69
I will not go on needlessly giving examples. It is sufficient to
know that there is not a single important idea or view that does
not possess historical antecedents. Ultimately they are all
founded on primordial archetypal forms whose concreteness
dates from a time when consciousness did not think, but only
perceived. "Thoughts" were objects of inner perception, not
thought at all, but sensed as external phenomena—seen or heard,
so to speak. Thought was essentially revelation, not invented
but forced upon us or bringing conviction through its imme
diacy and actuality. Thinking of this kind precedes the primi
tive ego-consciousness, and the latter is more its object than its
subject. But we ourselves have not yet climbed the last peak of
consciousness, so we also have a pre-existent thinking, of which
we are not aware so long as we are supported by traditional
symbols—or, to put it in the language of dreams, so long as the
father or the king is not dead.
7°
I would like to give you an example of how the unconscious
"thinks" and paves the way for solutions. It is the case of a
young theological student, whom I did not know personally. He
was in great straits because of his religious beliefs, and about
this time he dreamed the following dream: 37
871 have already used this dream in "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy
tales," par. 398, infra, and in "Psychology and Education," pp. n7ff., as an ex
ample of a "big" dream, without commenting on it more closely.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
7*
He was standing in the presence of a handsome old man
dressed entirely in black. He knew it was the white magician.
This personage had just addressed him at considerable length,
but the dreamer could no longer remember what it was about.
He had only retained the closing words: "And for this we need
the help of the black magician." At that moment the door
opened and in came another old man exactly like the first, ex
cept that he was dressed in white. He said to the white magician,
"I need your advice," but threw a sidelong, questioning look at
the dreamer, whereupon the white magician answered: "You
can speak freely, he is an innocent." The black magician then
began to relate his story. He had come from a distant land where
something extraordinary had happened. The country was ruled
by an old king who felt his death near. He—the king—had
sought out a tomb for himself. For there were in that land a
great number of tombs from ancient times, and the king had
chosen the finest for himself. According to legend, a virgin had
been buried in it. The king caused the tomb to be opened, in
order to get it ready for use. But when the bones it contained
were exposed to the light of day, they suddenly took on life and
changed into a black horse, which at once fled into the desert
and there vanished. The black magician had heard of this story
and immediately set forth in pursuit of the horse. After a jour
ney of many days, always on the tracks of the horse, he came to
the desert and crossed to the other side, where the grasslands
began again. There he met the horse grazing, and there also he
came upon the find on whose account he now needed the advice
of the white magician. For he had found the lost keys of para
dise, and he did not know what to do with them. At this excit
ing moment the dreamer awoke.
2
7
In the light of our earlier remarks the meaning of the dream
is not hard to guess: the old king is the ruling symbol that wants
to go to its eternal rest, and in the very place where similar
"dominants" lie buried. His choice falls, fittingly enough, on the
grave of anima, who lies in the death trance of a Sleeping
Beauty so long as the king is alive—that is, so long as a valid
principle (Prince or princeps) regulates and expresses life. But
when the king draws to his end,38 she comes to life again and
changes into a black horse, which in Plato's parable stands for
88
Cf. the motif of the "old king" in alchemy. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 4348-
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
the unruliness of the passions. Anyone who follows this horse
comes into the desert, into a wild land remote from men—an
image of spiritual and moral isolation. But there lie the keys of
paradise.
73
Now what is paradise? Clearly, the Garden of Eden with its
two-faced tree of life and knowledge and its four streams. In the
Christian version it is also the heavenly city of the Apocalypse,
which, like the Garden of Eden, is conceived as a mandala. But
the mandala is a symbol of individuation. So it is the black
magician who finds the keys to the solution of the problems of
belief weighing on the dreamer, the keys that open the way of
individuation. The contrast between desert and paradise there
fore signifies isolation as contrasted with individuation, or the
becoming of the self.
74
This part of the dream is a remarkable paraphrase of the
Oxyrhynchus sayings of Jesus, 39 in which the way to the king
dom of heaven is pointed out by animals, and where we find the
admonition: "Therefore know yourselves, for you are the city,
and the city is the kingdom." It is also a paraphrase of the
serpent of paradise who persuaded our first parents to sin, and
who finally leads to the redemption of mankind through the
Son of God. As we know, this causal nexus gave rise to the
Ophitic identification of the serpent with the 2ωτήρ (Saviour).
The black horse and the black magician are half-evil elements
whose relativity with respect to good is hinted at in the exchange
of garments. The two magicians are, indeed, two aspects of the
iuise old man, the superior master and teacher, the archetype of
the spirit, who symbolizes the pre-existent meaning hidden in
the chaos of life. He is the father of the soul, and yet the soul,
in some miraculous manner, is also his virgin mother, for which
reason he was called by the alchemists the "first son of the
mother." The black magician and the black horse correspond to
the descent into darkness in the dreams mentioned earlier.
75
What an unbearably hard lesson for a young student of
theology! Fortunately he was not in the least aware that the
father of all prophets had spoken to him in the dream and
placed a great secret almost within his grasp. One marvels at the
inappropriateness of such occurrences. Why this prodigality?
But I have to admit that we do not know how this dream
39 Cf. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 27(:.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
affected the student in the long run, and I must emphasize that
to me, at least, the dream had a very great deal to say. It was not
allowed to get lost, even though the dreamer did not understand
it.
75
The old man in this dream is obviously trying to show how
good and evil function together, presumably as an answer to the
still unresolved moral conflict in the Christian psyche. With this
peculiar relativization of opposites we find ourselves approach
ing nearer to the ideas of the East, to the nirdvandva of Hindu
philosophy, the freedom from opposites, which is shown as a
possible way of solving the conflict through reconciliation. How
perilously fraught with meaning this Eastern relativity of good
and evil is, can be seen from the Indian aphoristic question:
"Who takes longer to reach perfection, the man who loves God,
or the man who hates him?" And the answer is: "He who loves
God takes seven reincarnations to reach perfection, and he who
hates God takes only three, for he who hates God will think of
him more than he who loves him," Freedom from opposites
presupposes their functional equivalence, and this offends our
Christian feelings. Nonetheless, as our dream example shows,
the balanced co-operation of moral opposites is a natural truth
which has been recognized just as naturally by the East. The
clearest example of this is to be found in Taoist philosophy. But
in the Christian tradition, too, there are various sayings that
come very close to this standpoint. I need only remind you of
the parable of the unjust steward.
77
Our dream is by no means unique in this respect, for the
tendency to relativize opposites is a notable peculiarity of the
unconscious One must immediately add, however, that this is
true only in cases of exaggerated moral sensibility; in other cases
the unconscious can insist just as inexorably on the irreconcil
ability of the opposites. As a rule, the standpoint of the uncon
scious is relative to the conscious attitude. We can probably say,
therefore, that our dream presupposes the specific beliefs and
doubts of a theological consciousness of Protestant persuasion.
This limits the statement of the dream to a definite set of prob
lems. But even with this paring down of its validity the dream
clearly demonstrates the superiority of its standpoint. Fittingly
enough, it expresses its meaning in the opinion and voice of a
wise magician, who goes back in direct line to the figure of the
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
medicine man in primitive society. He is, like the anima, an
immortal daemon that pierces the chaotic darknesses o£ brute
life with the light of meaning. He is the enlightener, the master
and teacher, a psychopomp whose personification even Nie
tzsche, that breaker of tablets, could not escape—for he had
called up his reincarnation in Zarathustra, the lofty spirit of an
almost Homeric age, as the carrier and mouthpiece of his own
"Dionysian" enlightenment and ecstasy. For him God was dead,
but the driving daemon of wisdom became as it were his bodily
double. He himself says:
Then one was changed to two
And Zarathustra passed me by.
78
Zarathustra is more for Nietzsche than a poetic figure; he is
an involuntary confession, a testament. Nietzsche too had lost
his way in the darknesses of a life that turned its back upon God
and Christianity, and that is why there came to him the revealer
and enlightener, the speaking fountainhead of his soul. Here is
the source of the hieratic language of Zarathustra, for that is the
style of this archetype.
79
Modern man, in experiencing this archetype, comes to know
that most ancient form of thinking as an autonomous activity
whose object he is. Hermes Trismegistus or the Thoth of Her
metic literature, Orpheus, the Poimandres (shepherd of men)
and his near relation the Poimen of Hermes, 40 are other formu
lations of the same experience. If the name "Lucifer" were not
prejudicial, it would be a very suitable one for this archetype.
But I have been content to call it the archetype of the wise old
man, or of meaning. Like all archetypes it has a positive and a
negative aspect, though I don't want to enter into this here. The
reader will find a detailed exposition of the two-facedness of the
wise old man in "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy
tales."
80
The three archetypes so far discussed—the shadow, the ani
ma, and the wise old man—are of a kind that can be directly
experienced in personified form. In the foregoing I tried to
indicate the general psychological conditions in which such an
experience arises. But what I conveyed were only abstract
40 Reitzenstein interprets the "Shepherd" of Hermas as a. Christian rejoinder to
the Poimandres writings.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
generalizations. One could, or rather should, really give a de
scription of the process as it occurs in immediate experience. In
the course of this process the archetypes appear as active per
sonalities in dreams and fantasies. But the process itself involves
another class of archetypes which one could call the archetypes
of transformation. They are not personalities, but are typical
situations, places, ways and means, that symbolize the kind of
transformation in question. Like the personalities, these arche
types are true and genuine symbols that cannot be exhaustively
interpreted, either as signs or as allegories. They are genuine
symbols precisely because they are ambiguous, full of halfglimpsed meanings, and in the last resort inexhaustible. The
ground principles, the άρχαί, of the unconscious are indescribable
because of their wealth of reference, although in themselves
recognizable. The discriminating intellect naturally keeps on
trying to establish their singleness of meaning and thtis misses
the essential point; for what we can above all establish as the one
thing consistent with their nature is their manifold meaning,
their almost limitless wealth of reference, which makes any uni
lateral formulation impossible. Besides this, they are in prin
ciple paradoxical, just as for the alchemists the spirit was
conceived as "senex et iuvenis simul"—an old man and a youth
at once.
If one wants to form a picture of the symbolic process, the
series of pictures found in alchemy are good examples, though
the symbols they contain are for the most part traditional
despite their often obscure origin and significance. An excellent
Eastern example is the Tantric chakra system, 41 or the mystical
nerve system of Chinese yoga. 42 It also seems as if the set of pic
tures in the Tarot cards were distantly descended from the
archetypes of transformation, a view that has been confirmed
for me in a very enlightening lecture by Professor Bernoulli. 43
The symbolic process is an experience in images and of
images. Its development usually shows an enantiodromian struc
ture like the text of the I Ching 1 and so presents a rhythm of
negative and positive, loss and gain, dark and light. Its begin
ning is almost invariably characterized by one's getting stuck
41 Arthur Avalon, The Serpent Power.
42 Erwin Rousselle, "Spiritual Guidance in Contemporary Taoism."
43 R. Bernoulli, "Zur Symbolik geometrischer Figuren und Zahlen," pp. 397B,
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
in a blind alley or in some impossible situation; and its goal is,
broadly speaking, illumination or higher consciousness, by
means of which the initial situation is overcome on a higher
level, As regards the time factor, the process may be compressed
into a single dream or into a short moment of experience, or it
may extend over months and years, depending on the nature of
the initial situation, the person involved in the process, and the
goal to be reached. The wealth of symbols naturally varies
enormously from case to case. Although everything is experi
enced in image form, i.e., symbolically, it is by no means a ques
tion of fictitious dangers but of very real risks upon which the
fate of a whole life may depend. The chief danger is that of
succumbing to the fascinating influence of the archetypes, and
this is most likely to happen when the archetypal images are
not made conscious. If there is already a predisposition to
psychosis, it may even happen that the archetypal figures, which
are endowed with a certain autonomy anyway on account of
their natural numinosity, will escape from conscious control
altogether and become completely independent, thus produc
ing the phenomena of possession. In the case of an anima-possession, for instance, the patient will want to change himself
into a woman through self-castration, or he is afraid that some
thing of the sort will be done to him by force. The best-known
example of this is Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.
Patients often discover a whole anima mythology with numerous
archaic motifs. A case of this kind was published some time ago
by Nelken. 44 Another patient has described his experiences him
self and commented on them in a book. 45 I mention these ex
amples because there are still people who think that the
archetypes are subjective chimeras of my own brain.
83
The things that come to light brutally in insanity remain
hidden in the background in neurosis, but they continue to
influence consciousness nonetheless. When, therefore, the analy
sis penetrates the background of conscious phenomena, it dis
covers the same archetypal figures that activate the deliriums
of psychotics. Finally, there is any amount of literary and histori
cal evidence to prove that in the case of these archetypes we are
dealing with normal types of fantasy that occur practically
44 "Analytische Beobachtungen iiber Phantasien eines Schizophrenen," pp. 504(!.
45 John Custance, Wisdom, Madness, and Folly.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
everywhere and not with the monstrous products of insanity.
The pathological element does not lie in the existence of these
ideas, but in the dissociation of consciousness that can no longer
control the unconscious. In all cases of dissociation it is there
fore necessary to integrate the unconscious into consciousness.
This is a synthetic process which I have termed the "individua
tion process."
84
As a matter of fact, this process follows the natural course of
life—a life in which the individual becomes what he always was.
Because man has consciousness, a development of this kind does
not run very smoothly; often it is varied and disturbed, because
consciousness deviates again and again from its archetypal, in
stinctual foundation and finds itself in opposition to it. There
then arises the need for a synthesis of the two positions. This
amounts to psychotherapy even on the primitive level, where it
takes the form of restitution ceremonies. As examples I would
mention the identification of the Australian aborigines with
their ancestors in the alcheringa period, identification with the
"sons of the sun" among the Pueblos of Taos, the Helios apothe
osis in the Isis mysteries, and so on. Accordingly, the therapeutic
method of complex psychology consists on the one hand in mak
ing as fully conscious as possible the constellated unconscious
contents, and on the other hand in synthetizing them with con
sciousness through the act of recognition. Since, however, civi
lized man possesses a high degree of dissociability and makes
continual use of it in order to avoid every possible risk, it is by
no means a foregone conclusion that recognition will be fol
lowed by the appropriate action. On the contrary, we have to
reckon with the singular ineffectiveness of recognition and must
therefore insist on a meaningful application ot it. Recognition
by itself does not as a rule do this, nor does it imply, as such,
any moral strength. In these cases it becomes very clear how
much the cure of neurosis is a moral problem.
85
As the archetypes, like all numinous contents, are relatively
autonomous, they cannot be integrated simply by rational
means, but require a dialectical procedure, a real coming to
terms with them, often conducted by the patient in dialogue
form, so that, without knowing it, he puts into effect the
alchemical definition of the meditatio·. "an inner colloquy with
40
ARCHETYPES OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
one's good angel." 46 Usually the process runs a dramatic course,
with many ups and downs. It expresses itself in, or is accom
panied by, dream symbols that are related to the "representa
tions collectives," which in the form of mythological motifs have
portrayed psychic processes of transformation since the earliest
times. 47
In the short space of a lecture I must content myself with
giving only a few examples of archetypes. I have chosen the ones
that play the chief part in an analysis of the masculine psyche,
and have tried to give you some idea of /the transformation
process in which they appear. Since this lecture was first pub
lished, the figures of the shadow, anima, and wise old man,
together with the corresponding figures of the feminine uncon
scious, have been dealt with in greater detail in my contribu
tions to the symbolism of the self, 48 and the individuation
process in its relation to alchemical symbolism has also been
subjected to closer investigation. 49
4β Ruland l Lexicon alchemiae ( 1 6 1 2 ) .
47 Cf. Symbols of Transformation.
48 Aion, Part II of this volume.
4» Psychology and Alchemy.
THE CONCEPT OF THE
COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS 1
87
Probably none of my empirical concepts has met with so
much misunderstanding as the idea of the collective uncon
scious. In what follows I shall try to give (i) a definition of the
concept, (2) a description of what it means for psychology, (3) an
explanation of the method of proof, and (4) an example.
1.
Definition
88
The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can
be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the
fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal
experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition.
While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of con
tents which have at one time been conscious but which have
disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten
or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have
never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been
individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to
heredity. Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the
most part of complexes, the content of the collective uncon
scious is made up essentially of archetypes.
89
The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable
correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the
existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be
present always and everywhere. Mythological research calls them
"motifs"; in the psychology of primitives they correspond to
Levy-Bruhl's concept of "representations collectives," and in
the field of comparative religion they have been defined by
1 [Originally given as a lecture to the Abemethian Society at St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, London, on Oct. 19, 1936, and published in the Hospital's Journal,
XLIV (1936/37), 46-49, 64-66. The present version has been slightly revised by
the author and edited in terminology.—EDITORS.]
42
THE CONCEPT OF ΓΗΕ COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
9°
Hubert and Mauss as "categories of the imagination." Adolf
Bastian long ago called them "elementary" or "primordial
thoughts." From these references it should be clear enough that
my idea of the archetype—literally a pre-existent form—does not
stand alone but is something that is recognized and named in
other fields of knowledge.
My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate
consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and
which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we
tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists
a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and imper
sonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collec
tive unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.
It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only
become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to
certain psychic contents.
2 . The Psychological Meaning of the Collective Unconscious
91
Medical psychology, growing as it did out of professional
practice, insists on the personal nature of the psyche. By this I
mean the views of Freud and Adler. It is a psychology of the
person, and its aetiological or causal factors are regarded almost
wholly as personal in nature. Nonetheless, even this psychology
is based on certain general biological factors, for instance on
the sexual instinct or on the urge for self-assertion, which are
by no means merely personal peculiarities. It is forced to do
this because it lays claim to being an explanatory science.
Neither of these views would deny the existence of a priori in
stincts common to man and animals alike, or that they have a
significant influence on personal psychology. Yet instincts are
impersonal, universally distributed, hereditary factors of a dy
namic or motivating character, which very often fail so com
pletely to reach consciousness that modern psychotherapy is
faced with the task of helping the patient to become conscious
of them. Moreover, the instincts are not vague and indefinite
by nature, but are specifically formed motive forces which, long
before there is any consciousness, and in spite of any degree of
consciousness later on, pursue their inherent goals. Conse
quently they form very close analogies to the archetypes, so
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
close, in fact, that there is good reason for supposing that the
archetypes are the unconscious images of the instincts them
selves, in other words, that they are patterns of instinctual
behaviour,
92
The hypothesis of the collective unconscious is, therefore,
no more daring than to assume there are instincts. One admits
readily that human activity is influenced to a high degree
by instincts, quite apart from the rational motivations of the
conscious mind. So if the assertion is made that our imagina
tion, perception, and thinking are likewise influenced by in
born and universally present formal elements, it seems to me
that a normally functioning intelligence can discover in this
idea just as much or just as little mysticism as in the theory of
instincts. Although this reproach of mysticism has frequently
been levelled at my concept, I must emphasize yet again that
the concept of the collective unconscious is neither a specu
lative nor a philosophical but an empirical matter. The ques
tion is simply this: are there or are there not unconscious,
universal forms of this kind? If they exist, then there is a
region of the psyche which one can call the collective uncon
scious. It is true that the diagnosis of the collective uncon
scious is not always an easy task. It is not sufficient to point out
the often obviously archetypal nature of unconscious products,
for these can just as well be derived from acquisitions through
language and education. Cryptomnesia should also be ruled
out, which it is almost impossible to do in certain cases. In
spite of all these difficulties, there remain enough individual
instances showing the autochthonous revival of mythological
motifs to put the matter beyond any reasonable doubt. But if
such an unconscious exists at all, psychological explanation
must take account of it and submit certain alleged personal
aetiologies to sharper criticism.
93
What I mean can perhaps best be made clear by a concrete
example. You have probably read Freud's discussion 2 of a
certain picture by Leonardo da Vinci: St. Anne with the Virgin
Mary and the Christ-child. Freud interprets this remarkable
picture in terms of the fact that Leonardo himself had two
mothers. This causality is personal. We shall not linger over
the fact that this picture is far from unique, nor over the minor
2 Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, sec. IV.
THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
94
95
inaccuracy that St. Anne happens to be the grandmother of
Christ and not, as required by Freud's interpretation, the
mother, but shall simply point out that interwoven with the
apparently personal psychology there is an impersonal motif
well known to us from other fields. This is the motif of the
dual mother, an archetype to be found in many variants in
the field of mythology and comparative religion and forming
the basis of numerous "repr£sentations collectives." I might
mention, for instance, the motif of the dual descent, that is,
descent from human and divine parents, as in the case of
Heracles, who received immortality through being unwittingly
adopted by Hera. What was a myth in Greece was actually a
ritual in Egypt: Pharaoh was both human and divine by
nature. In the birth chambers of the Egyptian temples Phar
aoh's second, divine conception and birth is depicted on the
walls; he is "twice-born." It is an idea that underlies all re
birth mysteries, Christianity included. Christ himself is "twiceborn": through his baptism in the Jordan he was regenerated
and reborn from water and spirit. Consequently, in the Roman
liturgy the font is designated the "uterus ecclesiae," and, as
you can read in the Roman missal, it is called this even today,
in the "benediction of the font" on Holy Saturday before
Easter. Further, according to an early Christan-Gnostic idea,
the spirit which appeared in the form of a dove was inter
preted as Sophia-Sapientia—Wisdom and the Mother of Christ.
Thanks to this motif of the dual birth, children today, instead
of having good and evil fairies who magically "adopt" them
at birth with blessings or curses, are given sponsors—a "god
father" and a "godmother."
The idea of a second birth is found at all times and in all
places. In the earliest beginnings of medicine it was a magical
means of healing; in many religions it is the central mystical
experience; it is the key idea in medieval, occult philosophy,
and, last but not least, it is an infantile fantasy occurring in
numberless children, large and small, who believe that their
parents are not their real parents but merely foster-parents to
whom they were handed over. Benvenuto Cellini also had this
idea, as he himself relates in his autobiography.
Now it is absolutely out of the question that all the individ
uals who believe in a dual descent have in reality always had
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
two mothers, or conversely that those few who shared Leo
nardo's fate have infected the rest of humanity with their
complex. Rather, one cannot avoid the assumption that the
universal occurrence of the dual-birth motif together with the
fantasy of the two mothers answers an omnipresent human
need u r hich is reflected in these motifs. If Leonardo da Vinci
did in fact portray his two mothers in St. Anne and Mary—
which I doubt—he nonetheless was only expressing something
which countless millions of people before and after him have
believed. The vulture symbol (which Freud also discusses in
the work mentioned) makes this view all the more plausible.
With some justification he quotes as the source of the symbol
the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, 3 a book much in use in Leo
nardo's time. There you read that vultures are female only
and symbolize the mother. They conceive through the wind
(pneuma). This word took on the meaning of "spirit" chiefly
under the influence of Christianity. Even in the account of
the miracle at Pentecost the pneuma still has the double mean
ing of wind and spirit. This fact, in my opinion, points with
out doubt to Mary, who, a virgin by nature, conceived through
the pneuma, like a vulture. Furthermore, according to Horapollo, the vulture also symbolizes Athene, who sprang, unbegotten, directly from the head of Zeus, was a virgin, and
knew only spiritual motherhood. All this is really an allusion
to Mary and the rebirth motif. There is not a shadow of
evidence that Leonardo meant anything else by his picture.
Even if it is correct to assume that he identified himself with
the Christ-child, he was in all probability representing the
mythological dual-mother motif and by no means his own per
sonal prehistory. And what about all the other artists who
painted the same theme? Surely not all of them had two
mothers?
96
Let us now transpose Leonardo's case to the field of the
neuroses, and assume that a patient with a mother complex
is suffering from the delusion that the cause of his neurosis
lies in his having really had two mothers. The personal inter
pretation would have to admit that he is right—and yet it
would be quite wrong. For in reality the cause of his neurosis
would lie in the reactivation of the dual-mother archetype,
and Freud, Leonardo, sec. II.—E DITORS.]
3 [Cf. the trans, by George Boas, pp.
46
THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
quite regardless of whether he had one mother or two mothers,
because, as we have seen, this archetype functions individually
and historically without any reference to the relatively rare
occurrence of dual motherhood.
97
In such a case, it is of course tempting to presuppose so
simple and personal a cause, yet the hypothesis is not only
inexact but totally false. It is admittedly difficult to under
stand how a dual-mother motif—unknown to a physician
trained only in medicine—could have so great a determining
power as to produce the effect of a traumatic condition. But if
we consider the tremendous powers that lie hidden in the
mythological and religious sphere in man, the aetiological
significance of the archetype appears less fantastic. In numerous
cases of neurosis the cause of the disturbance lies in the very
fact that the psychic life of the patient lacks the co-operation of
these motive forces. Nevertheless a purely personalistic psy
chology, by reducing everything to personal causes, tries its
level best to deny the existence of archetypal motifs and even
seeks to destroy them by personal analysis. I consider this a
rather dangerous procedure which cannot be justified medi
cally. Today you can judge better than you could twenty
years ago the nature of the forces involved. Can we not see how
a whole nation is reviving an archaic symbol, yes, even archaic
religious forms, and how this mass emotion is influencing and
revolutionizing the life of the individual in a catastrophic
manner? The man of the past is alive in us today to a degree
undreamt of before the war, and in the last analysis what is
the fate of great nations but a summation of the psychic
changes in individuals?
9s
So far as a neurosis is really only a private affair, having its
roots exclusively in personal causes, archetypes play no role at
all. But if it is a question of a general incompatibility or an
otherwise injurious condition productive of neuroses in rela
tively large numbers of individuals, then we must assume the
presence of constellated archetypes. Since neuroses are in most
cases not just private concerns, but social phenomena, we must
assume that archetypes are constellated in these cases too. The
archetype corresponding to the situation is activated, and as a
result those explosive and dangerous forces hidden in the
archetype come into action, frequently with unpredictable
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
consequences. There is no lunacy people under the domination
of an archetype will not fall a prey to. If thirty years ago anyone
had dared to predict that our psychological development was
tending towards a revival of the medieval persecutions of the
Jews, that Europe would again tremble before the Roman
fasces and the tramp of legions, that people would once more
give the Roman salute, as two thousand years ago, and that
instead of the Christian Cross an archaic swastika would lure
onward millions of warriors ready for death—why, that man
would have been hooted at as a mystical fool. And today? Sur
prising as it may seem, all this absurdity is a horrible reality.
Private life, private aetiologies, and private neuroses have be
come almost a fiction in the world of today. The man of the
past who lived in a world of archaic "representations collec
tives" has risen again into very visible and painfully real life,
and this not only in a few unbalanced individuals but in many
millions of people.
99
There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations
in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into
our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with
content, but at first only as forms ivithout content, represent
ing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and
action. When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given
archetype, that archetype becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its way
against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of patho
logical dimensions, that is to say, a neurosis.
3.
1 00
Method of Proof
We must now turn to the question of how the existence of
archetypes can be proved. Since archetypes are supposed to
pioduce certain psychic forms, we must discuss how and where
one can get hold of the material demonstrating these forms.
The main source, then, is dreams, which have the advantage of
being involuntary, spontaneous products of the unconscious
psyche and are therefore pure products of nature not falsified
by any conscious purpose. By questioning the individual one
can ascertain which of the motifs appearing in the dream are
known to him. From those which are unknown to him we must
48
THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
naturally exclude all motifs which might be known to him, as
for instance—to revert to the case of Leonardo—the vulture
symbol. We are not sure whether Leonardo took this symbol
from Horapollo or not, although it would have been perfectly
possible for an educated person of that time, because in those
days artists were distinguished for their wide knowledge of
the humanities. Therefore, although the bird motif is an arche
type par excellence, its existence in Leonardo's fantasy would
still prove nothing. Consequently, we must look for motifs
which could not possibly be known to the dreamer and yet
behave functionally in his dream in such a manner as to coin
cide with the functioning of the archetype known from histori
cal sources.
ιοί
Another source for the material we need is to be found in
"active imagination." By this I mean a sequence of fantasies pro
duced by deliberate concentration. I have found that the exist
ence of unrealized, unconscious fantasies increases the frequency
and intensity of dreams, and that when these fantasies are made
conscious the dreams change their character and become weaker
and less frequent. From this I have drawn the conclusion that
dreams often contain fantasies which "want" to become con
scious. The sources of dreams are often repressed instincts
which have a natural tendency to influence the conscious mind.
In cases of this sort, the patient is simply given the task of con
templating any one fragment of fantasy that seems significant to
him—a chance idea, perhaps, or something he has become con
scious of in a dream—until its context becomes visible, that is
to say, the relevant associative material in which it is embedded.
It is not a question of the "free association" recommended by
Freud for the purpose of dream-analysis, but of elaborating the
fantasy by observing the further fantasy material that adds itself
to the fragment in a natural manner.
I0 2
This is not the place to enter upon a technical discussion of
the method. Suffice it to say that the resultant sequence of
fantasies relieves the unconscious and produces material rich in
archetypal images and associations. Obviously, this is a method
that can only be used in certain carefully selected cases. The
method is not entirely without danger, because it may carry the
patient too far away from reality. A warning against thoughtless
application is therefore in place.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
I0 3
Finally, very interesting sources of archetypal material are
to be found in the delusions of paranoiacs, the fantasies ob
served in trance-states, and the dreams of early childhood, from
the third to the fifth year. Such material is available in profu
sion, but it is valueless unless one can adduce convincing mytho
logical parallels. It does not, of course, suffice simply to connect
a dream about a snake with the mythological occurrence of
snakes, for who is to guarantee that the functional meaning of
the snake in the dream is the same as in the mythological set
ting? In order to draw a valid parallel, it is necessary to know
the functional meaning of the individual symbol, and then to
find out whether the apparently parallel mythological symbol
has a similar context and therefore the same functional mean
ing. Establishing such facts not only requires lengthy and
wearisome researches, but is also an ungrateful subject for
demonstration. As the symbols must not be torn out of their
context, one has to launch forth into exhaustive descriptions,
personal as well as symbological, and this is practically impos
sible in the framework of a lecture. I have repeatedly tried it at
the risk of sending one half of my audience to sleep.
4. A n E x a m p l e
,0 4
I0 5
I am choosing as an example a case which, though already
published, I use again because its brevity makes it peculiarly
suitable for illustration. Moreover, I can add certain remarks
which were omitted in the previous publication. 4
About 1906 I came across a very curious delusion in a
paranoid schizophrenic who had been interned for many years.
The patient had suffered since his youth and was incurable. He
had been educated at a State school and been employed as a
clerk in an office. He had no special gifts, and I myself knew
nothing of mythology or archaeology in those days, so the situa
tion was not in any way suspect. One day I found the patient
standing at the window, wagging his head and blinking into the
sun. He told me to do the same, for then I would see something
very interesting. When I asked him what he saw, he was aston4 Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (orig. 1912). [Trans, as Psychology of the
Unconscious, igi6. Cf, the revised edition, Symbols of Transformation, pars. 1498.,
223.—EDITORS.]
THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
ished that I could see nothing, and said: "Surely you see the
sun's penis—when I move my head to and fro, it moves too, and
that is where the wind comes from." Naturally I did not under
stand this strange idea in the least, but I made a note of it. Then
about four years later, during my mythological studies, I came
upon a book by the late Albrecht Dieterich, 5 the well-known
philologist, which threw light on this fantasy. The work, pub
lished in 1910, deals with a Greek papyrus in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris. Dieterich believed he had discovered a Mithraic ritual in one part of the text. The text is undoubtedly a
religious prescription for carrying out certain incantations in
which Mithras is named. It comes from the Alexandrian school
of mysticism and shows affinities with certain passages in the
Leiden papyri and the Corpus Hermeticum. In Dieterich's text
we read the following directions:
Draw breath from the rays, draw in three times as strongly as you
can and you will feel yourself raised up and walking towards the
height, and you will seem to be in the middle of the aerial region.
. . . The path of the visible gods will appear through the disc of the
sun, who is God my father. Likewise the so-called tube, the origin
of the ministering wind. For you will see hanging down from the
disc of the sun something that looks like a tube. And towards the
regions westward it is as though there were an infinite east wind.
But if the other wind should prevail towards the regions of the east,
you will in like manner see the vision veering in that direction. 6
It is obviously the author's intention to enable the reader to
experience the vision which he had, or which at least he be
lieves in. The reader is to be initiated into the inner religious
experience either of the author, or—what seems more likely—
of one of those mystic communities of which Philo Judaeus gives
contemporary accounts. The fire- or sun-god here invoked is a
figure which has close historical parallels, for instance with the
Christ-figure of the Apocalypse. It is therefore a "representa
tion collective," as are also the ritual actions described, such as
the imitating of animal noises, etc. The vision is embedded in a
B Eine Mithrasliturgie. [As the author subsequently learned, the 1910 edition was
actually the second, there having been a first edition in 1903. The patient had,
however, been committed some years before 1903.—EDITORS.]
β Ibid., pp. 6ff.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
religious context of a distinctly ecstatic nature and describes a
kind of initiation into mystic experience of the Deity.
10 7
Our patient was about ten years older than I. In his megalo
mania, he thought he was God and Christ in one person. His
attitude towards me was patronizing; he liked me probably be
cause I was the only person with any sympathy for his abstruse
ideas. His delusions were mainly religious, and when he invited
me to blink into the sun like he did and waggle my head he
obviously wanted to let me share his vision. He played the role
of the mystic sage and I was the neophyte. He felt he was the
sun-god himself, creating the wind by wagging his head to and
fro. The ritual transformation into the Deity is attested by
Apuleius in the Isis mysteries, and moreover in the form of a
Helios apotheosis. The meaning of the "ministering wind" is
probably the same as the procreative pneuma, which streams
from the sun-god into the soul and fructifies it. The association
of sun and wind frequently occurs in ancient symbolism.
1OS
It must now be shown that this is not a purely chance coin
cidence of two isolated cases. We must therefore show that the
idea of a wind-tube connected with God or the sun exists inde
pendently of these two testimonies and that it occurs at other
times and in other places. Now there are, as a matter of fact,
medieval paintings that depict the fructification of Mary with
a tube or hose-pipe coming down from the throne of God and
passing into her body, and we can see the dove or the Christchild flying down it. The dove represents the fructifying agent,
the wind of the Holy Ghost.
10 9
Now it is quite out of the question that the patient could
have had any knowledge whatever of a Greek papyrus published
four years later, and it is in the highest degree unlikely that his
vision had anything to do with the rare medieval representa
tions of the Conception, even if through some incredibly im
probable chance he had ever seen a copy of such a painting. The
patient was certified in his early twenties. He had never trav
elled. And there is no such picture in the public art gallery in
Zurich, his native town.
110
I mention this case not in order to prove that the vision is
an archetype but only to show you my method of procedure in
the simplest possible form. If we had only such cases, the task of
investigation would be relatively easy, but in reality the proof
THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
is much more complicated. First of all, certain symbols have
to be isolated clearly enough to be recognizable as typical phe
nomena, not just matters of chance. This is done by examining
a series of dreams, say a few hundred, for typical figures, and by
observing their development in the series. The same method
can be applied to the products of active imagination. In this
way it is possible to establish certain continuities or modulations
of one and the same figure. You can select any figure which
gives the impression of being an archetype by its behaviour in
the series of dreams or visions. If the material at one's disposal
has been well observed and is sufficiently ample, one can dis
cover interesting facts about the variations undergone by a
single type. Not only the type itself but its variants too can be
substantiated by evidence from comparative mythology and
ethnology. I have described the method of investigation else
where 7 and have also furnished the necessary case material.
"!Psychology and Alchemy, Part II.
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES,
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE ANIMA CONCEPT 1
Although modern man appears to believe that the non-em
pirical approach to psychology is a thing of the past, his general
attitude remains very much the same as it 1 Ivas before, when
psychology was identified with some theory about the psyche.
In academic circles, a drastic revolution in methodology, initi
ated by Fechner 2 and Wundt, 3 was needed in order to make
clear to the scientific world that psychology was a field of expe
rience and not a philosophical theory. To the increasing ma
terialism of the late nineteenth century, however, it meant noth
ing that there had once been an "experimental psychology," 4
to which we owe many descriptions that are still valuable today.
I have only to mention Dr. Justinus Kernel's Seherin von
Prevorst. 5 All "romantic" descriptions in psychology were anath
ema to the new developments in scientific method. The exag
gerated expectations of this experimental laboratory science
were reflected in Fechner's "psychophysics," and its results today
take the form of "psychological tests" and a general shifting of
the scientific standpoint in favour of phenomenology.
Nevertheless, it cannot be maintained that the phenomenological point of view has made much headway. Theory still
plays far too great a role, instead of being included in phenome
nology as it should. Even Freud, whose empirical attitude is
beyond doubt, coupled his theory as a sine qua non with his
1
[Originally published as "l)ber den Archetypus mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung
des Animabegriffcs" in the Zentralblatt fiir Psychotherapie und ihre Grenzgebiete
(Leipzig), I X
(1936) : 5, 259-75.
Revised and republished in Von den Wurzeln des
Bewusstseins (Zurich, 1954), from which version the present translation is made.
2 Elemente der Psychophysik
—EDITORS.]
(I860).
3 Principles of Physiological Psychology (orig. 1874) .
4 Cf. G. H. von Schubert's compilation, Altes und Neues aus d e m Gebiet der
innern Seelenkunde (1825-44).
5 First published
1829.
Trans, as T h e Seeress of Prevorst
(1859).
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
method, as if psychic phenomena had to be viewed in a certain
light in order to mean something. All the same, it was Freud
who cleared the ground for the investigation of complex phe
nomena, at least in the field of neurosis. But the ground he
cleared extended only so far as certain basic physiological con
cepts permitted, so that it looked almost as if psychology were
an offshoot of the physiology of the instincts. This limitation of
psychology was very welcome to the materialistic outlook of that
time, nearly fifty years ago, and, despite our altered view of the
world, it still is in large measure today. It gives us not only the
advantage of a "delimited field of work," but also an excellent
excuse not to bother with what goes on in a wider world.
"3
Thus it was overlooked by the whole of medical psychology
that a psychology of the neuroses, such as Freud's, is left hang
ing in mid air if it lacks knowledge of a general phenomenology.
It was also overlooked that in the field of the neuroses Pierre
Janet, even before Freud, had begun to build up a descriptive
methodology 6 without loading it with too many theoretical and
philosophical assumptions. Biographical descriptions of psychic
phenomena, going beyond the strictly medical field, were repre
sented chiefly by the work of the philosopher Theodore Flournoy, of Geneva, in his account of the psychology of an unusual
personality. 7 This was followed by the first attempt at synthesis:
William James's Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). I owe
it mainly to these two investigators that I learnt to understand
the nature of psychic disturbances within the setting of the hu
man psyche as a whole. I myself did experimental work for
several years, but, through my intensive studies of the neuroses
and psychoses, I had to admit that, however desirable quanti
tative definitions may be, it is impossible to do without quali
tatively descriptive methods. Medical psychology has recognized
that the salient facts are extraordinarily complex and can be
grasped only through descriptions based on case material. But
this method presupposes freedom from theoretical prejudice.
Every science is descriptive at the point where it can no longer
proceed experimentally, without on that account ceasing to be
6
L'Automatisme psychologique (1889); The Mental State of Hystericals (orig.,
1893); Nevroses et idees fixes (1898).
1 From India to the Planet Mars (orig., 1900), and "Nouvelles Observations sur un
cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
lI
4
M
5
scientific. But an experimental science makes itself impossible
when it delimits its field of work in accordance with theoretical
concepts. The psyche does not come to an end where some
physiological assumption or other stops. In other words, in each
individual case that we observe scientifically, we have to con
sider the manifestations of the psyche in their totality.
These reflections are essential when discussing an empirical
concept like that of the anima. As against the constantly reiter
ated prejudice that this is a theoretical invention or—worse still
—sheer mythology, I must emphasize that the concept of the
anima is a purely empirical concept, whose sole purpose is to
give a name to a group of related or analogous psychic phe
nomena. The concept does no more and means no more than,
shall we say, the concept "arthropods," which includes all ani
mals with articulated body and limbs and so gives a name to this
phenomenological group. The prejudice I have mentioned
stems, regrettable though this is, from ignorance. My critics are
not acquainted with the phenomena in question, for these lie
mostly outside the pale of merely medical knowledge, in a realm
of universal human experience. But the psyche, which the medi
cal man has to do with, does not worry about the limitations
of his knowledge; it manifests a life of its own and reacts to
influences coming from every field of human experience. Its
nature shows itself not merely in the personal sphere, or in the
instinctual or social, but in phenomena of world-wide distri
bution. So if we want to understand the psyche, we have to
include the whole world. For practical reasons we can, indeed
must, delimit our fields of work, but this should be done only
with the conscious recognition of limitation. The more com
plex the phenomena which we have to do with in practical
treatment, the wider must be our frame of reference and the
greater the corresponding knowledge.
Anyone, therefore, who does not know the universal distri
bution and significance of the syzygy motif in the psychology of
primitives,8 in mythology, in comparative religion, and in the
history of literature, can hardly claim to say anything about
the concept of the anima. His knowledge of the psychology of
the neuroses may give him some idea of it, but it is only a knowl81 am thinking especially o£ shamanism with its idea of the "celestial wife"
(Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 76-81).
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
edge of its general phenomenology that could open his eyes to
the real meaning of what he encounters in individual cases,
often in pathologically distorted form.
"6
Although common prejudice still believes that the sole essen
tial basis of our knowledge is given exclusively from outside,
and that "nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu,"
it nevertheless remains true that the thoroughly respectable
atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus was not based on
any observations of atomic fission but on a "mythological" con
ception of smallest particles, which, as the smallest animated
parts, the soul-atoms, are known even to the still palaeolithic
inhabitants of central Australia.9 How much "soul" is pro
jected into the unknown in the world of external appearances
is, of course, familiar to anyone acquainted with the natural sci
ence and natural philosophy of the ancients. It is, in fact, so
much that we are absolutely incapable of saying how the world
is constituted in itself—and always shall be, since we are obliged
to convert physical events into psychic processes as soon as we
want to say anything about knowledge. But who can guarantee
that this conversion produces anything like an adequate "objec
tive" picture of the world? That could only be if the physical
event were also a psychic one. But a great distance still seems to
separate us from such an assertion. Till then, we must for better
or worse content ourselves with the assumption that the psyche
supplies those images and forms which alone make knowledge
of objects possible.
117
These forms are generally supposed to be transmitted by tra
dition, so that we speak of "atoms" today because we have
heard, directly or indirectly, of the atomic theory of Democritus.
But where did Democritus, or whoever first spoke of minimal
constitutive elements, hear of atoms? This notion had its origin
in archetypal ideas, that is, in primordial images which were
never reflections of physical events but are spontaneous prod
ucts of the psychic factor. Despite the materialistic tendency to
understand the psyche as a mere reflection or imprint of physi
cal and chemical processes, there is not a single proof of this
hypothesis. Quite the contrary, innumerable facts prove that the
β Spencer and Gillen, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 331 and else
where. Also Crawley, The Idea of the Soul, pp. 871.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
psyche translates physical processes into sequences of images
which have hardly any recognizable connection with the objec
tive process. The materialistic hypothesis is much too bold and
flies in the face of experience with almost metaphysical pre
sumption. The only thing that can be established with certainty,
in the present state of our knowledge, is our ignorance of the
nature of the psyche. There is thus no ground at all for regard
ing the psyche as something secondary or as an epiphenomenon;
on the contrary, there is every reason to regard it, at least hypothetically, as a factor sui generis, and to go on doing so until it
has been sufficiently proved that psychic processes can be fabri
cated in a retort. We have laughed at the claims of the alche
mists to be able to manufacture a lapis philosophorum consist
ing of body, soul, and spirit, as impossible, hence we should stop
dragging along with us the logical consequence of this medieval
assumption, namely the materialistic prejudice regarding the
psyche, as though it were a proven fact.
It will not be so easy to reduce complex psychic facts to a
chemical formula. Hence the psychic factor must, ex hypothesi,
be regarded for the present as an autonomous reality of enig
matic character, primarily because, judging from all Ave know,
it appears to be essentially different from physicochemical proc
esses. Even if we do not ultimately know what its substantiality
is, this is equally true of physical objects and of matter in gen
eral. So if we regard the psyche as an independent factor, we
must logically conclude that there is a psychic life which is not
subject to the caprices of our will. If, then, those qualities of
elusiveness, superficiality, shadowiness, and indeed of futility
attach to anything psychic, this is primarily true of the subjec
tive psychic, i.e., the contents of consciousness, but not of the
objective psychic, the unconscious, which is an a priori condi
tioning factor of consciousness and its contents. From the un
conscious there emanate determining influences which, inde
pendently of tradition, guarantee in every single individual a
similarity and even a sameness of experience, and also of the
way it is represented imaginatively. One of the main proofs of
this is the almost universal parallelism between mythological
motifs, which, on account of their quality as primordial images,
I have called archetypes.
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
»'9
Ιϊ0
One of these archetypes, which is of paramount practical
importance for the psychotherapist, I have named the anima.
This Latin expression is meant to connote something that
should not be confused with any dogmatic Christian idea of the
soul or with any of the previous philosophical conceptions of it.
If one wishes to form anything like a concrete conception of
what this term covers, one would do better to go back to a clas
sical author like Macrobius, 10 or to classical Chinese philoso
phy, 11 where the anima (p'o or kuei) is regarded as the feminine
and chthonic part of the soul. A parallel of this kind always runs
the risk of metaphysical concretism, which I do my best to avoid,
though any attempt at graphic description is bound to succumb
to it up to a point. For we are dealing here not with an abstract
concept but with an empirical one, and the form in which it
appears necessarily clings to it, so that it cannot be described at
all except in terms of its specific phenomenology.
Unperturbed by the philosophical pros and cons of the age,
a scientific psychology must regard those transcendental intui
tions that sprang from the human mind in all ages as projec
tions, that is, as psychic contents that were extrapolated in
metaphysical space and hypostatized. 12 We encounter the anima
historically above all in the divine syzygies, the male-female
pairs of deities. These reach down, on the one side, into the ob
scurities of primitive mythology, 13 and up, on the other, into the
philosophical speculations of Gnosticism 14 and of classical Chi
nese philosophy, where the cosmogonic pair of concepts are
designated yang (masculine) and yin (feminine). 15 We can safely
assert that these syzygies are as universal as the existence of man
and woman. From this fact we may reasonably conclude that
man's imagination is bound by this motif, so that he was largely
10 Commentary on the Dream of Scipio.
11 Cf. my "Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower," pars. 57®·. and
Chantcpie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, I, p. 71.
12 This standpoint derives from Kant's theory of knowledge and has nothing to
do with materialism.
is Winthuis, Das Zweigeschlechterwesen bet den Zentralaustraliern und anderen
Volkern,
I* Especially in the system of the Valentinians. Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses.
15 Cf. The I Ching or Book of Changes. [Also Needham, Science and Civilization
in China, II, pp. 27gf.—EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
121
122
compelled to project it again and again, at all times and in all
places. 15
Now, as we know from psychotherapeutic experience, pro
jection is an unconscious, automatic process whereby a content
that is unconscious to the subject transfers itself to an object, so
that it seems to belong to that object. The projection ceases the
moment it becomes conscious, that is to say when it is seen as
belonging to the subject. 17 Thus the polytheistic heaven of the
ancients owes its depotentiation not least to the view first pro
pounded by Euhemeros, 18 who maintained that the gods were
nothing but reflections of human character. It is indeed easy to
show that the divine pair is simply an idealization of the parents
or of some other human couple, which for some reason appeared
in heaven. This assumption would be simple enough if projec
tion were not an unconscious process but were a conscious in
tention. It would generally be supposed that one's own parents
are the best known of all individuals, the ones of which the
subject is most conscious. But precisely for this reason they
could not be projected, because projection always contains
something of which the subject is not conscious and which seems
not to belong to him. The image of the parents is the very one
that could be projected least, because it is too conscious.
In reality, however, it is just the parental imagos that seem
to be projected most frequently, a fact so obvious that one could
almost draw the conclusion that it is precisely the conscious con
tents which are projected. This can be seen most plainly in cases
of transference, where it is perfectly clear to the patient that the
father-imago (or even the mother-imago) is projected 011 to the
analyst and he even sees through the incest-fantasies bound up
with them, without, however, being freed from the reactive
effect of his projection, i.e., from the transference. In other
IfiHermetic alchemical philosophy from the 14th to the 17th cents, provides a
wealth of instructive examples. For our purposes, a glimpse into Michael Maier's
Symbola aureae mensae (1617) would suffice.
17 There are of course cases where, in spite of the patient's seemingly sufficient in
sight, the reactive effect of the projection does not cease, and the expected libera
tion does not take place. I have often observed that in such cases meaningful but
unconscious contents are still bound up with the projection carrier. It is these
contents that keep up the effect of the projection, although it has apparently been
seen through.
18 Fl. c. 300 B.C. Cf. Block, Euhemere: son Iivre et sa doctrine.
60
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
words, he behaves exactly as if he had not seen through his pro
jection at all. Experience shows that projection is never con
scious: projections are always there first and are recognized
afterwards. We must therefore assume that, over and above the
incest-fantasy, highly emotional contents are still bound up
with the parental imagos and need to be made conscious. They
are obviously more difficult to make conscious than the incestfantasies, which are supposed to have been repressed through
violent resistance and to be unconscious for that reason. Sup
posing this view is correct, we are driven to the conclusion that
besides the incest-fantasy there must be contents which are
repressed through a still greater resistance. Since it is difficult to
imagine anything more repellent than incest, we find ourselves
rather at a loss to answer this question.
I2 3
If we let practical experience speak, it tells us that, apart
from the incest-fantasy, religious ideas are associated with the
parental imagos. I do not need to cite historical proofs of this,
as they are known to all. But what about the alleged objectionableness of religious associations?
«24
Someone once observed that in ordinary society it is more
embarrassing to talk about God at table than to tell a risqui
story. Indeed, for many people it is more bearable to admit their
sexual fantasies than to be forced to confess that their analyst is
a saviour, for the former are biologically legitimate, whereas the
latter instance is definitely pathological, and this is something
we greatly fear. It seems to me, however, that we make too much
of "resistance." The phenomena in question can be explained
just as easily by lack of imagination and reflectiveness, which
makes the act of conscious realization so difficult for the patient.
He may perhaps have no particular resistance to religious ideas,
only the thought has never occurred to him that he could seri
ously regard his analyst as a God or saviour. Mere reason alone
is sufficient to protect him from such illusions. But he is less slow
to assume that his analyst thinks himself one. When one is dog
matic oneself, it is notoriously easy to take other people for
prophets and founders of religions.
12 5
Now religious ideas, as history shows, are charged with an
extremely suggestive, emotional power. Among them I naturally
reckon all representations collectives, everything that we learn
from the history of religion, and anything that has an "-ism"
61
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
attached to it. The latter is only a modern variant of the denom
inational religions. A man may be convinced in all good faith
that he has no religious ideas, but no one can fall so far away
from humanity that he no longer has any dominating repre
sentation collective. Hisvery materialism, atheism, communism,
socialism, liberalism, intellectualism, existentialism, or what
not, testifies against his innocence. Somewhere or other, overtly
or covertly, he is possessed by a supraordinate idea.
126
The psychologist knows how much religious ideas have to do
with the parental imagos. History has preserved overwhelming
evidence of this, quite apart from modern medical findings,
which have even led certain people to suppose that the relation
ship to the parents is the real origin of religious ideas. This
hypothesis is based on very poor knowledge of the facts. In the
first place, one should not simply translate the family psychol
ogy of modern man into a context of primitive conditions,
where things are so very different; secondly, one should beware
of ill-considered tribal-father and primal-horde fantasies; thirdly
and most importantly, one should have the most accurate knowl
edge of the phenomenology of religious experience, which is a
subject in itself. Psychological investigations in this field have
so far not fulfilled any of these three conditions.
12 7
The only thing we know positively from psychological expe
rience is that theistic ideas are associated with the parental
imagos, and that our patients are mostly unconscious of them.
If the corresponding projections cannot be withdrawn through
insight, then we have every reason to suspect the presence of
emotional contents of a religious nature, regardless of the ra
tionalistic resistance of the patient.
Js8
So far as we have any information about man, we know that
he has always and everywhere been under the influence of
dominating ideas. Any one who alleges that he is not can im
mediately be suspected of having exchanged a known form of
belief for a variant which is less known both to himself and to
others. Instead of theism he is a devotee of atheism, instead of
Dionysus he favours the more modern Mithras, and instead of
heaven he seeks paradise on earth.
I2 9
A man without a dominating representation collective would
be a thoroughly abnormal phenomenon. But such a person ex-
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
ists only in the fantasies of isolated individuals who are deluded
about themselves. They are mistaken not only about the exist
ence of religious ideas, but also and more especially about their
intensity. The archetype behind a religious idea has, like every
instinct, its specific energy, which it does not lose even if the
conscious mind ignores it. Just as it can be assumed with the
greatest probability that every man possesses all the average
human functions and qualities, so we may expect the presence of
normal religious factors, the archetypes, and this expectation
does not prove fallacious. Any one who succeeds in putting off
the mantle of faith can do so only because another lies close to
hand. No one can escape the prejudice of being human.
1S0
The representations collectives have a dominating power, so
it is not surprising that they are repressed with the most intense
resistance. When repressed, they do not hide behind any trifling
thing but behind ideas and figures that have already become
problematical for other reasons, and intensify and complicate
their dubious nature. For instance, everything that we would
like, in infantile fashion, to attribute to our parents or blame
them for is blown up to fantastic proportions from this secret
source, and for this reason it remains an open question how
much of the ill-reputed incest-fantasy is to be taken seriously.
Behind the parental pair, or pair of lovers, lie contents of ex
treme tension which are not apperceived in consciousness and
can therefore become perceptible only through projection. That
projections of this kind do actually occur and are not just tradi
tional opinions is attested by historical documents. These show
that syzygies were projected which were in complete contradic
tion to the traditional beliefs, and that they were often expe
rienced in the form of a vision.19
*3»
One of the most instructive examples in this respect is the
vision of the recently canonized Nicholas of Flue, a Swiss mystic
of the fifteenth century, of whose visions we possess reports by
18 This is not to overlook the fact that there is probably a far greater number of
visions which agree with the dogma. Nevertheless, they are not spontaneous and
autonomous projections in the strict sense but are visualizations 0} conscious con
tents, evoked through prayer, autosuggestion, and heterosuggestion. Most spiritual
exercises have this effect, and so do the prescribed meditation practices of the East.
In any thorough investigation of such visions it would have to be ascertained,
among other things, what the actual vision was and how far dogmatic elaboration
contributed to its form.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
his contemporaries. 20 In the visions that marked his initiation
into the state of adoption by God, God appeared in dual form,
once as a majestic father and once as a majestic mother. This
representation could not be more unorthodox, since the Church
had eliminated the feminine element from the Trinity a thou
sand years earlier as heretical. Brother Klaus was a simple un
lettered peasant who doubtless had received none but the
approved Church teaching, and was certainly not acquainted
with the Gnostic interpretation of the Holy Ghost as the femi
nine and motherly Sophia. 21 His so-called Trinity Vision is at
the same time a perfect example of the intensity of projected
contents. Brother Klaus's psychological situation was eminently
suited to a projection of this kind, for his conscious idea of God
was so little in accord with the unconscious content that the
latter had to appear in the form of an alien and shattering
experience. We must conclude from this that it was not the
traditional idea of God but, on the contrary, an "heretical"
image 22 that realized itself in visionary form; an archetypal in
terpretation which came to life again spontaneously, independ
ently of tradition. It was the archetype of the divine pair, the
syzygy.
1 S*
There is a very similar case in the visions of Guillaume de
Digulleville, 23 which are described in Le Pelerinage de I'dme.
He saw God in the highest heaven as the King on a shining
round throne, and beside him sat the Queen of Heaven on a
throne of brown crystal. For a monk of the Cistercian Order,
which as we know is distinguished for its severity, this vision is
exceedingly heretical. So here again the condition for projection
is fulfilled.
1 SS
Another impressive account of the syzygy vision can be found
in the work of Edward Maitland, who wrote the biography of
20 Cf, Stoeckli,
Die Visionen des seligen Bruder Klaus, and Blanke, Bruder Klaus
von Flue.
21 The peculiar love-story of this youngest Aeon can be found in Irenaeus,
Adv.
haer., I, s, 2ff. (Roberts/Rambaut trans., I, pp. yff.)
22 Cf. my "Brother Klaus."
23 Guillaume wrote three
Pelerinages in the manner of the Divine Comedy, but
independently of Dante, between 1330 and 1350. He was Prior of the Cistercian
monastery at Chilis, in Normandy. Cf. Delacotte,
Guillaume de Digulleville: Trois
Romans-poemes du XIV siicle. [Also cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 315ft
—EDITORS.]
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
Anna Kingsford. There he describes in detail his own experi
ence of God, which, like that of Brother Klaus, consisted in a
vision of light. He says: "This was . . . God as the Lord, prov
ing by His duality that God is Substance as well as Force, Love
as well as Will, feminine as well as masculine, Mother as well as
Father." 24
»34
These few examples may suffice to characterize the experi
ence of projection and those features of it which are independ
ent of tradition. We can hardly get round the hypothesis that
an emotionally charged content is lying ready in the unconscious
and springs into projection at a certain moment. This content
is the syzygy motif, and it expresses the fact that a masculine
element is always paired with a feminine one. The wide distri
bution and extraordinary emotionality of this motif prove that
it is a fundamental psychic factor of great practical importance,
no matter whether the individual psychotherapist or psycholo
gist understands where and in what way it influences his special
field of work. Microbes, as we know, played their dangerous
role long before they were discovered.
>35
As I have said, it is natural to suspect the parental pair in all
syzygies. The feminine part, the mother, corresponds to the
anima. But since, for the reasons discussed above, consciousness
of the object prevents its projection, there is nothing for it but
to assume that parents are also the least known of all human
beings, and consequently that an unconscious reflection of the
parental pair exists which is as unlike them, as utterly alien and
incommensurable, as a man compared with a god. It would be
conceivable, and has as we know been asserted, that the uncon
scious reflection is none other than the image of father and
mother that was acquired in early childhood, overvalued, and
later repressed on account of the incest-fantasy associated with
it. This hypothesis presupposes that the image was once conscious, otherwise it could not have been "repressed." It also
presupposes that the act of moral repression has itself become
unconscious, for otherwise the act would remain preserved in
24Anna
Kingsford: Her Life, Letters, Diary, and Work, I, pp. 130, Maitland's vision
is similar in form and meaning to the one in the Poimandres (Scott, Hermetica,
I, Libellus I, pp. 114¾.), where the spiritual light is described as "male-female."
I do not know whether Maitland was acquainted with the Poimandres; probably
not.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
consciousness together with the memory of the repressive moral
reaction, from which the nature of the thing repressed could
easily be recognized. I do not want to enlarge on these mis
givings, but would merely like to emphasize that there is gen
eral agreement on one point: that the parental imago comes
into existence not in the pre-puberal period or at a time when
consciousness is more or less developed, but in the initial stages
between the first and fourth year, when consciousness does not
show any real continuity and is characterized by a kind of island
like discontinuity. The ego-relationship that is required for
continuity of consciousness is present only in part, so that a
large proportion of psychic life at this stage runs on in a state
which can only be described as relatively unconscious. At all
events it is a state which would give the impression of a som
nambulistic, dream, or twilight state if observed in an adult.
These states, as we know from the observation of small children,
are always characterized by an apperception of reality filled with
fantasies. The fantasy-images outweigh the influence of sensory
stimuli and mould them into conformity with a pre-existing
psychic image.
l35
It is in my view a great mistake to suppose that the psyche
of a new-born child is a tabula rasa in the sense that there is
absolutely nothing in it. In so far as the child is born with a
differentiated brain that is predetermined by heredity and there
fore individualized, it meets sensory stimuli coming from out
side not with any aptitudes, but with specific ones, and this
necessarily results in a particular, individual choice and pattern
of apperception. These aptitudes can be shown to be inherited
instincts and preformed patterns, the latter being the a priori
and formal conditions of apperception that are based on in
stinct. Their presence gives the world of the child and the
dreamer its anthropomorphic stamp. They are the archetypes,
which direct all fantasy activity into its appointed paths and in
this way produce, in the fantasy-images of children's dreams as
well as in the delusions of schizophrenia, astonishing mythologi
cal parallels such as can also be found, though in lesser degree,
in the dreams of normal persons and neurotics. It is not, there
fore, a question of inherited ideas but of inherited possibilities
of ideas. Nor are they individual acquisitions but, in the main,
66
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
common to all, as can be seen from the universal occurrence of
the archetypes. 25
137
Just as the archetypes occur on the ethnological level as
myths, so also lhey are found in every individual, and their
effect is always strongest, that is, they anthropomorphize reality
most, where consciousness is weakest and most restricted, and
where fantasy can overrun the facts of the outer world. This
condition is undoubtedly present in the child during the first
years of its life. It therefore seems to me more probable that the
archetypal form of the divine syzygy first covers up and
assimilates the image of the real parents until, with increasing
consciousness, the real figures of the parents are perceived—
often to the child's disappointment. Nobody knows better than
the psychotherapist that the mythologizing of the parents is
often pursued far into adulthood and is given up only with the
greatest resistance.
8
>3
I remember a case that was presented to me as the victim of
a high-grade mother and castration complex, which had still
not been overcome in spite of psychoanalysis. Without any hint
from me, the man had made some drawings which showed the
mother first as a superhuman being, and then as a figure of woe,
with bloody mutilations. I was especially struck by the fact that
a castration had obviously been performed on the mother, for
in front of her gory genitals lay the cut-off male sexual organs.
The drawings clearly represented a diminishing climax: first
the mother was a divine hermaphrodite, who then, through the
son's disappointing experience of reality, was robbed of its
androgynous, Platonic perfection and changed into the woeful
figure of an ordinary old woman. Thus from the very begin
ning, from the son's earliest childhood, the mother was assimi
lated to the archetypal idea of the syzygy, or conjunction of male
and female, and for this reason appeared perfect and super25 Hubert and Mauss (Melanges d'histoire des religions, preface, p. xxix) call
these a priori thought-forms "categories," presumably with reference to Kant:
"They exist ordinarily as habits which govern consciousness, but are themselves
unconscious." The authors conjecture that the primordial images are conditioned
by language. This conjecture may be correct in certain cases, but in general it is
contradicted by the fact that a great many archetypal images and associations are
brought to light by dream psychology and psychopathology which would be abso
lutely incommunicable through language.
67
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
] 39
human. 26 The latter quality invariably attaches to the archetype
and explains why the archetype appears strange and as if not be
longing to consciousness, and also why, if the subject identifies
with it, it often causes a devastating change of personality, gen
erally in the form of megalomania or its opposite.
The son's disappointment effected a castration of the her
maphroditic mother: this was the patient's so-called castration
complex. He had tumbled down from his childhood Olympus
and was no longer the son-hero of a divine mother. His so-called
fear of castration was fear of real life, which refused to come up
to his erstwhile childish expectations, and everywhere lacked
that mythological meaning which he still dimly remembered
from his earliest youth. His life was, in the truest sense of the
word, "godless." And that, for him—though he did not realize
it—meant a dire loss of hope and energy. He thought of himself
as "castrated," which is a very plausible neurotic misunder
standing—so plausible that it could even be turned into a theory
of neurosis.
Because people have always feared that the connection with
the instinctive, archetypal stage of consciousness might get lost
in the course of life, the custom has long since been adopted of
giving the new-born child, in addition to his bodily parents,
two godparents, a "godfather" and a "godmother," who are sup
posed to be responsible for the spiritual welfare of their god
child. They represent the pair of gods who appear at its birth,
thus illustrating the "dual birth" motif. 27
26 Conforming to the bisexual Original Man in Plato, Symposium, XIV, and to
the hermaphroditic Primal Beings in general.
27 The "dual birth" refers to the motif, Λνεΐΐ known from hero mythology, which
makes the hero descend from divine as well as from human parents. In most
mysteries and religions it plays an important role as a baptism or rebirth motif.
It was this motif that misled Freud in his study of Leonardo da Vinci. Without
taking account of the fact that Leonardo was by no means the only artist to paint
the motif of St. Anne, Mary, and the Christ-child, Freud tried to reduce Anne and
Mary, the grandmother and mother, to the mother and stepmother of Leonardo;
in other words, to assimilate the painting to his theory. But did the other painters
all have stepmothers?! What prompted Freud to this violent interpretation was
obviously the fantasy of dual descent suggested by Leonardo's biography. This
fantasy covered up the inconvenient reality that St. Anne was the grandmother,
and prevented Freud from inquiring into the biographies of other artists who also
painted St. Anne. The "religious inhibition of thought" mentioned on p. 79
(•95/ edn.) proved true of the author himself. Similarly, the incest theory on
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
The anima image, which lends the mother such superhuman
glamour in the eyes of the son, gradually becomes tarnished by
commonplace reality and sinks back into the unconscious, but
without in any way losing its original tension and instinctivity.
It is ready to spring out and project itself at the first opportu
nity, the moment a woman makes an impression that is out of
the ordinary. We then have Goethe's experience with Frau von
Stein, and its repercussions in the figures of Mignon and
Gretchen, all over again. In the case of Gretchen, Goethe also
showed us the whole underlying "metaphysic." The love life of
a man reveals the psychology of this archetype in the form
either of boundless fascination, overvaluation, and infatuation,
or of misogyny in all its gradations and variants, none of which
can be explained by the real nature of the "object" in question,
but only by a transference of the mother complex. The complex,
however, was caused in the first place by the assimilation of the
mother (in itself a normal and ubiquitous phenomenon) to the
pre-existent, feminine side of an archetypal "male-female" pair
of opposites, and secondly by an abnormal delay in detaching
from the primordial image of the mother. Actually, nobody can
stand the total loss of the archetype. When that happens, it gives
rise to that frightful "discontent in our culture," where nobody
feels at home because a "father" and "mother" are missing.
Everyone knows the provisions that religion has always made in
this respect. Unfortunately there are very many people who
thoughtlessly go on asking whether these provisions are "true,"
when it is really a question of a psychological need. Nothing is
achieved by explaining them away rationalistically.
142
When projected, the anima always has a feminine form with
definite characteristics. This empirical finding does not mean
which he lays so much stress is based on another archetype, the well-known incest
motif frequently met with in hero myths. It is logically derived from the original
hermaphrodite type, which seems to go far back into prehistory. Whenever a
psychological theory is forcibly applied, we have reason to suspect that an arche
typal fantasy-image is trying to distort reality, thus bearing out Freud's own idea
of the "religious inhibition of thought." But to explain the genesis of archetypes
by means of the incest theory is about as useful as ladling water from one kettle
into another kettle standing beside it, which is connected with the first by a pipe.
You cannot explain one archetype by another; that is, it is impossible to say where
the archetype comes from, because there is no Archimedean point outside the
a priori conditions it represents.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
that the archetype is constituted like that in itself. The malefemale syzygy is only one among the possible pairs of opposites,
albeit the most important one in practice and the commonest.
It has numerous connections with other pairs which do not dis
play any sex differences at all and can therefore be put into the
sexual category only by main force. These connections, with
their manifold shades of meaning, are found more particularly
in Kundalini yoga, 28 in Gnosticism, 29 and above all in alchemi
cal philosophy, 30 quite apart from the spontaneous fantasy-prod
ucts in neurotic and psychotic case material. When one carefully
considers this accumulation of data, it begins to seem probable
that an archetype in its quiescent, unprojected state has no
exactly determinable form but is in itself an indefinite structure
which can assume definite forms only in projection.
143
This seems to contradict the concept of a "type." If I am
not mistaken, it not only seems but actually is a contradiction.
Empirically speaking, we are dealing all the time with "types,"
definite forms that can be named and distinguished. But as soon
as you divest these types of the phenomenology presented by
the case material, and try to examine them in relation to other
archetypal forms, they branch out into such far-reaching rami
fications in the history of symbols that one comes to the con
clusion that the basic psychic elements are infinitely varied and
ever changing, so as utterly to defy our powers of imagination.
The empiricist must therefore content himself with a theoreti
cal "as if." In this respect he is no worse off than the atomic
physicist, even though his method is not based on quantitative
measurement but is a morphologically descriptive one.
!44
The anima is a factor of the utmost importance in the psy
chology of a man wherever emotions and affects are at work. She
intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional
relations with his work and with other people of both sexes. The
resultant fantasies and entanglements are all her doing. When
the anima is strongly constellated, she softens the man's char
acter and makes him touchy, irritable, moody, jealous, vain, and
unadjusted. He is then in a state of "discontent" and spreads
28 Cf. Avalon, The Serpent Power; Shrt-Chakra-Sambhara Tantra; Woodroffe,
Shakti and Shakta.
29 Schultz, Dokumente der Gnosis, especially the lists in Irenaeus, Adversus
haereses.
30 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy.
70
CONCERNING THE ARCHETYPES AND THE ANIMA CONCEPT
discontent all around him. Sometimes the man's relationship to
the woman who has caught his anima accounts for the existence
of this syndrome.
145
The anima, as I have remarked elsewhere, 31 has not escaped
the attentions of the poets. There are excellent descriptions of
her, which at the same time tell us about the symbolic context
in which the archetype is usually embedded. I give first place
to Rider Haggard's novels She, The Return of She, and Wis
dom's Daughter, and Benoit's L y Atlantide. Benoit was accused
of plagiarizing Rider Haggard, because the two accounts are
disconcertingly alike. But it seems he was able to acquit himself
of this charge. Spitteler's Prometheus contains some very subtle
observations, too, and his novel Imago gives an admirable de
scription of projection.
>46
The question of therapy is a problem that cannot be disposed
of in a few words. It was not my intention to deal with it here,
but I would like to outline my point of view. Younger people,
who have not yet reached the middle of life (around the age of
35), can bear even the total loss of the anima without injury.
The important thing at this stage is for a man to be a man. The
growing youth must be able to free himself from the anima
fascination of his mother. There are exceptions, notably artists,
where the problem often takes a different turn; also homo
sexuality, which is usually characterized by identity with the
anima. In view of the recognized frequency of this phenomenon,
its interpretation as a pathological perversion is very dubious.
The psychological findings show that it is rather a matter of
incomplete detachment from the hermaphroditic archetype,
coupled with a distinct resistance to identify with the role of a
one-sided sexual being. Such a disposition should not be ad
judged negative in all circumstances, in so far as it preserves
the archetype of the Original Man, which a one-sided sexual
being has, up to a point, lost.
>47
After the middle of life, however, permanent loss of the ani
ma means a diminution of vitality, of flexibility, and of human
kindness. The result, as a rule, is premature rigidity, crustiness,
stereotypy, fanatical one-sidedness, obstinacy, pedantry, or else
resignation, weariness, sloppiness, irresponsibility, and finally
a childish ramollissement with a tendency to alcohol. After
31 Cf. the first paper in this volume.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
middle life, therefore, the connection with the archetypal sphere
of experience should if possible be re-established. 32
The most important problems for therapy are discussed in my essay "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" and also in the "Psychology of the
Transference," For the mythological aspects of the anima, the reader is referred to
another paper in this volume, "The Psychological Aspects of the Kore,"
82
7~
II
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE
MOTHER ARCHETYPE
[First published as a lecture, "Die psychologischen Aspekte des Mutterarchetypus,"
in Eranos-Jahrbuch I938. Later revised and published in Von den Wurzeln des
Bewusstseins (Zurich, 1954). The present translation is of the latter, but it is also
based partially on a translation of the 1938 version by Cary F. Baynes and
Ximena de Angulo, privately issued in Spring (New York), 1943.-EDITORS.]
ι.
'48
>49
ON THE CONCEPT OF THE ARCHETYPE
The concept of the Great Mother belongs to the field of
comparative religion and embraces widely varying types of
mother-goddess. The concept itself is of no immediate concern
to psychology, because the image of a Great Mother in this form
is rarely encountered in practice, and then only under very
special conditions. The symbol is obviously a derivative of
the mother archetype. If we venture to investigate the back
ground of the Great Mother image from the standpoint of psy
chology, then the mother archetype, as the more inclusive of
the two, must form the basis of our discussion. Though lengthy
discussion of the concept of an archetype is hardly necessary at
this stage, some preliminary remarks of a general nature may
not be out of place.
In former times, despite some dissenting opinion and the
influence of Aristotle, it was not too difficult to understand
Plato's conception of the Idea as supraordinate and pre-existent
to all phenomena. "Archetype," far from being a modern term,
was already in use before the time of St. Augustine, and was
synonymous with "Idea" in the Platonic usage. When the
Corpus Hermeticum, which probably dates from the third cen
tury, describes God as το άρχίτνπ-ον φώς, the 'archetypal light,' it
expresses the idea that he is the prototype of all light; that is to
say, pre-existent and supraordinate to the phenomenon "light."
Were I a philosopher, I should continue in this Platonic strain
and say: Somewhere, in "a place beyond the skies," there is a pro
totype or primordial image of the mother that is pre-existent and
supraordinate to all phenomena in which the "maternal," in
the broadest sense of the term, is manifest. But I am an empiri
cist, not a philosopher; I cannot let myself presuppose that my
peculiar temperament, my own attitude to intellectual prob
lems, is universally valid. Apparently this is an assumption in
which only the philosopher may indulge, who always takes it
for granted that his own disposition and attitude are universal,
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
and will not recognize the fact, if he can avoid it, that his "per
sonal equation" conditions his philosophy. As an empiricist, I
must point out that there is a temperament which regards ideas
as real entities and not merely as nomina. It so happens—by the
merest accident, one might say—that for the past two hundred
years we have been living in an age in which it has become un
popular or even unintelligible to suppose that ideas could be
anything but nomina. Anyone who continues to think as Plato
did must pay for his anachronism by seeing the "supracelestial,"
i.e., metaphysical, essence of the Idea relegated to the unverifiable realm of faith and superstition, or charitably left to the
poet. Once again, in the age-old controversy over universale, the
nominalistic standpoint has triumphed over the realistic, and
the Idea has evaporated into a mere flatus vocis. This change was
accompanied—and, indeed, to a considerable degree caused—by
the marked rise of empiricism, the advantages of which were
only too obvious to the intellect. Since that time the Idea is no
longer something a priori, but is secondary and derived. Natu
rally, the new nominalism promptly claimed universal validity
for itself in spite of the fact that it, too, is based on a definite and
limited thesis coloured by temperament. This thesis runs as
follows: we accept as valid anything that comes from outside and
can be verified. The ideal instance is verification by experiment.
The antithesis is: we accept as valid anything that comes from
inside and cannot be verified. The hopelessness of this position
is obvious. Greek natural philosophy with its interest in matter,
together with Aristotelian reasoning, has achieved a belated but
overwhelming victory over Plato.
»5°
Yet every victory contains the germ of future defeat. In our
own day signs foreshadowing a change of attitude are rapidly
increasing. Significantly enough, it is Kant's doctrine of cate
gories, more than anything else, that destroys in embryo every
attempt to revive metaphysics in the old sense of the word, but
at the same time paves the way for a rebirth of the Platonic
spirit. If it be true that there can be no metaphysics transcending
human reason, it is no less true that there can be no empirical
knowledge that is not already caught and limited by the a priori
structure of cognition. During the century and a half that have
elapsed since the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason, the
conviction has gradually gained ground that thinking, under76
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
standing, and reasoning cannot be regarded as independent
processes subject only to the eternal laws of logic, but that
they are psychic functions co-ordinated with the personality
and subordinate to it. We no longer ask, "Has this or that
been seen, heard, handled, weighed, counted, thought, and
found to be logical?" We ask instead, ' i Who saw, heard, or
thought?" Beginning with "the personal equation" in the ob
servation and measurement of minimal processes, this critical
attitude has gone on to the creation of an empirical psychology
such as no time before ours has known. Today we are convinced
that in all fields of knowledge psychological premises exist which
exert a decisive influence upon the choice of material, the
method of investigation, the nature of the conclusions, and the
formulation of hypotheses and theories. We have even come to
believe that Kant's personality was a decisive conditioning fac
tor of his Critique of Pure Reason. Not only our philosophers,
but our own predilections in philosophy, and even what we are
fond of calling our "best" truths are affected, if not dangerously
undermined, by this recognition of a personal premise. All
creative freedom, we cry out, is taken away from us! What? Can
it be possible that a man only thinks or says or does what he
himself is?
«5 1
Provided that we do not again exaggerate and so fall a victim
to unrestrained "psychologizing," it seems to me that the critical
standpoint here defined is inescapable. It constitutes the essence,
origin, and method of modern psychology. There is an a priori
factor in all human activities, namely the inborn, preconscious
and unconscious individual structure of the psyche. The pre
conscious psyche—for example, that of a new-born infant—is not
an empty vessel into which, under favourable conditions, prac
tically anything can be poured. On the contrary, it is a tre
mendously complicated, sharply defined individual entity which
appears indeterminate to us only because we cannot see it
directly. But the moment the first visible manifestations of
psychic life begin to appear, one would have to be blind not to
recognize their individual character, that is, the unique per
sonality behind them. It is hardly possible to suppose that all
these details come into being only at the moment in which they
appear. When it is a case of morbid predispositions already
present in the parents, we infer hereditary transmission through
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
the germ-plasm; it would not occur to us to regard epilepsy in
the child of an epileptic mother as an unaccountable mutation.
Again, we explain by heredity the gifts and talents which can
be traced back through whole generations. We explain in the
same way the reappearance of complicated instinctive actions in
animals that have never set eyes on their parents and therefore
could not possibly have been "taught" by them.
'52
Nowadays we have to start with the hypothesis that, so far as
predisposition is concerned, there is no essential difference be
tween man and all other creatures. Like every animal, he pos
sesses a preformed psyche which breeds true to his species and
which, on closer examination, reveals distinct features traceable
to family antecedents. We have not the slightest reason to sup
pose that there are certain human activities or functions that
could be exempted from this rule. We are unable to form any
idea of what those dispositions or aptitudes are which make
instinctive actions in animals possible. And it is just as impos
sible for us to know the nature of the preconscious psychic dis
position that enables a child to react in a human manner. We
can only suppose that his behaviour results from patterns of
functioning, which I have described as images. The term
"image" is intended to express not only the form of the activity
taking place, but the typical situation in which the activity is
released. 1 These images are "primordial" images in so far as they
are peculiar to whole species, and if they ever "originated" their
origin must have coincided at least with the beginning of the
species. They are the "human quality" of the human being, the
specifically human form his activities take. This specific form is
hereditary and is already present in the germ-plasm. The idea
that it is not inherited but comes into being in every child anew
would be just as preposterous as the primitive belief that the
sun which rises in the morning is a different sun from that
which set the evening before.
!53
Since everything psychic is preformed, this must also be true
of the individual functions, especially those which derive di
rectly from the unconscious predisposition. The most important
of these is creative fantasy. In the products of fantasy the pri
mordial images are made visible, and it is here that the concept
of the archetype finds its specific application. I do not claim to
ι C£. my "Instinct and the Unconscious," par. 877.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
'54
'55
have been the first to point out this fact. The honour belongs
to Plato. The first investigator in the field of ethnology to draw
attention to the widespread occurrence of certain "elementary
ideas" was Adolf Bastian. Two later investigators, Hubert and
Mauss, 2 followers of Diirkheim, speak of "categories" of the
imagination. And it was no less an authority than Hermann
Usener 3 who first recognized unconscious preformation under
the guise of "unconscious thinking." If I have any share in these
discoveries, it consists in my having shown that archetypes are
not disseminated only by tradition, language, and migration,
but that they can rearise spontaneously, at any time, at any
place, and without any outside influence.
The far-reaching implications of this statement must not be
overlooked. For it means that there are present in every psyche
forms which are unconscious but nonetheless active—living dis
positions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that preform and con
tinually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions.
Again and again I encounter the mistaken notion that an
archetype is determined in regard to its content, in other words
that it is a kind of unconscious idea (if such an expression be
admissible). It is necessary to point out once more that arche
types are not determined as regards their content, but only as
regards their form and then only to a very limited degree. A
primordial image is determined as to its content only when it
has become conscious and is therefore filled out with the mate
rial of conscious experience. Its form, however, as I have ex
plained elsewhere, might perhaps be compared to the axial
system of a crystal, which, as it were, preforms the crystalline
structure in the mother liquid, although it has no material
existence of its own. This first appears according to the specific
way in which the ions and molecules aggregate. The archetype
in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a facultas
praeformandi, a possibility of representation which is given
a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only
the forms, and in that respect they correspond in every way to
the instincts, which are also determined in form only. The
existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the ex
istence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest them2 [Cf. the previous paper, "Concerning the Archetypes," par. 137, η. 25.—EDITORS.]
8 Usener, Das Weihnachtsfest1 p. 3.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
selves concretely. With regard to the definiteness of the form,
our comparison with the crystal is illuminating inasmuch as the
axial system determines only the stereometric structure but not
the concrete form of the individual crystal. This may be either
large or small, and it may vary endlessly by reason of the dif
ferent size of its planes or by the growing together of two
crystals. The only thing that remains constant is the axial sys
tem, or rather, the invariable geometric proportions underlying
it. The same is true of the archetype. In principle, it can be
named and has an invariable nucleus of meaning—but always
only in principle, never as regards its concrete manifestation.
In the same way, the specific appearance of the mother-image at
any given time cannot be deduced from the mother archetype
alone, but depends on innumerable other factors.
2.
THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
Like any other archetype, the mother archetype appears
under an almost infinite variety of aspects. I mention here only
some of the more characteristic. First in importance are the per
sonal mother and grandmother, stepmother and mother-in-law;
then any woman with whom a relationship exists—for example,
a nurse or governess or perhaps a remote ancestress. Then there
are what might be termed mothers in a figurative sense. To this
category belongs the goddess, and especially the Mother of God,
the Virgin, and Sophia. Mythology offers many variations of the
mother archetype, as for instance the mother who reappears as
the maiden in the myth of Demeter and Kore; or the mother
who is also the beloved, as in the Cybele-Attis myth. Other
symbols of the mother in a figurative sense appear in things
representing the goal of our longing for redemption, such as
Paradise, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem. Many
things arousing devotion or feelings of awe, as for instance the
Church, university, city or country, heaven, earth, the woods,
the sea or any still waters, matter even, the underworld and the
moon, can be mother-symbols. The archetype is often asso
ciated with things and places standing for fertility and fruitfulness: the cornucopia, a ploughed field, a garden. It can be
attached to a rock, a cave, a tree, a spring, a deep well, or to
various vessels such as the baptismal font, or to vessel-shaped
flowers like the rose or the lotus. Because of the protection it
implies, the magic circle or mandala can be a form of mother
archetype. Hollow objects such as ovens and cooking vessels are
associated with the mother archetype, and, of course, the uterus,
JOni i and anything of a like shape. Added to this list there are
many animals, such as the cow, hare, and helpful animals in
general.
'57
All these symbols can have a positive, favourable meaning
or a negative, evil meaning. An ambivalent aspect is seen in the
goddesses of fate (Moira, Graeae j Noras). Evil symbols are the
81
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
witch, the dragon (or any devouring and entwining animal, such
as a large fish or a serpent), the grave, the sarcophagus, deep
water, death, nightmares and bogies (Empusa, Lilith, etc.). This
list is not, of course, complete; it presents only the most im
portant features of the mother archetype.
'5 s
The qualities associated with it are maternal solicitude and
sympathy; the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and
spiritual exaltation that transcend reason; any helpful instinct
or impulse; all that is benign, all that cherishes and sustains,
that fosters growth and fertility. The place of magic transforma
tion and rebirth, together with the underworld and its inhabit
ants, are presided over by the mother. On the negative side the
mother archetype may connote anything secret, hidden, dark;
the abyss, the world of the dead, anything that devours, seduces,
and poisons, that is terrifying and inescapable like fate. All these
attributes of the mother archetype have been fully described
and documented in my book Symbols of Transformation. There
I formulated the ambivalence of these attributes as "the loving
and the terrible mother." Perhaps the historical example of the
dual nature of the mother most familiar to us is the Virgin
Mary, who is not only the Lord's mother, but also, according to
the medieval allegories, his cross. In India, "the loving and
terrible mother" is the paradoxical Kali. Sankhya philosophy
has elaborated the mother archetype into the concept of prakrti
(matter) and assigned to it the three giinas or fundamental
attributes: Sattva j rajas, tamas: goodness, passion, and darkness. 1
These are three essential aspects of the mother: her cherishing
and nourishing goodness, her orgiastic emotionality, and her
Stygian depths. The special feature of the philosophical myth,
which shows Prakrti dancing before Purusha in order to remind
him of "discriminating knowledge," does not belong to the
mother archetype but to the archetype of the anima, which in
a man's psychology invariably appears, at first, mingled with
the mother-image.
>59
Although the figure of the mother as it appears in folklore is
more or less universal, this image changes markedly when it
appears in the individual psyche. In treating patients one is at
ι This is the etymological meaning of the three gunas. See Weckerfing, Anandaraya-makhi: Das Gluck des Lebens 1 pp. 21 if., and Garbe, Die Samkhya Philosophic,
pp. 272ff. [Cf. also Zimmer, Philosophies of India, index, s.v.—EDITORS.]
82
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
first impressed, and indeed arrested, by the apparent signifi
cance of the personal mother. This figure of the personal mother
looms so large in all personalistic psychologies that, as we know,
they never got beyond it, even in theory, to other important
aetiological factors. My own view differs from that of other
medico-psychological theories principally in that I attribute to
the personal mother only a limited aetiological significance.
That is to say, all those influences which the literature describes
as being exerted on the children do not come from the mother
herself, but rather from the archetype projected upon her, which
gives her a mythological background and invests her with au
thority and numinosity. 2 The aetiological and traumatic effects
produced by the mother must be divided into two groups: (i)
those corresponding to traits of character or attitudes actually
present in the mother, and (2) those referring to traits which
the mother only seems to possess, the reality being composed of
more or less fantastic (i.e., archetypal) projections on the part of
the child. Freud himself had already seen that the real aetiology
of neuroses does not lie in traumatic effects, as he at first sus
pected, but in a peculiar development of infantile fantasy. This
is not to deny that such a development can be traced back to
disturbing influences emanating from the mother. I myself make
it a rule to look first for the cause of infantile neuroses in the
mother, as I know from experience that a child is much more
likely to develop normally than neurotically, and that in the
great majority of cases definite causes of disturbances can be
found in the parents, especially in the mother. The contents of
the child's abnormal fantasies can be referred to the personal
mother only in part, since they often contain clear and unmis
takable allusions which could not possibly have reference to
human beings. This is especially true where definitely mytho
logical products are concerned, as is frequently the case in
infantile phobias where the mother may appear as a wild beast,
a witch, a spectre, an ogre, a hermaphrodite, and so on. It must
be borne in mind, however, that such fantasies are not always of
unmistakably mythological origin, and even if they are, they
may not always be rooted in the unconscious archetype but may
have been occasioned by fairytales or accidental remarks. A
2 American psychology can supply us with any amount of examples. A blistering
but instructive lampoon on this subject is Philip Wylie's Generation of Vipers.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
thorough investigation is therefore indicated in each case. For
practical reasons, such an investigation cannot be made so read
ily with children as with adults, who almost invariably transfer
their fantasies to the physician during treatment—or, to be more
precise, the fantasies are projected upon him automatically.
160
When that happens, nothing is gained by brushing them
aside as ridiculous, for archetypes are among the inalienable
assets of every psyche. They form the "treasure in the realm of
shadowy thoughts" of which Kant spoke, and of which we have
ample evidence in the countless treasure motifs of mythology.
An archetype is in no sense just an annoying prejudice;
it becomes so only when it is in the wrong place. In themselves,
archetypal images are among the highest values of the human
psyche; they have peopled the heavens of all races from time
immemorial. To discard them as valueless would be a distinct
loss. Our task is not, therefore, to deny the archetype, but to
dissolve the projections, in order to restore their contents to the
individual who has involuntarily lost them by projecting them
outside himself.
g.
THE MOTHER-COMPLEX
The mother archetype forms the foundation of the so-called
mother-complex. It is an open question whether a mothercomplex can develop without the mother having taken part in
its formation as a demonstrable causal factor. My own experi
ence leads me to believe that the mother always plays an active
part in the origin of the disturbance, especially in infantile neu
roses or in neuroses whose aetiology undoubtedly dates back to
early childhood. In any event, the child's instincts are disturbed,
and this constellates archetypes which, in their turn, produce
fantasies that come between the child and its mother as an alien
and often frightening element. Thus, if the children of an over
anxious mother regularly dream that she is a terrifying animal
or a witch, these experiences point to a split in the child's psyche
that predisposes it to a neurosis.
I. THE MOTHER-COMPLEX OF THE SON
The effects of the mother-complex differ according to
whether it appears in a son or a daughter. Typical effects on the
son are homosexuality and Don Juanism, and sometimes also
impotence.1 In homosexuality, the son's entire heterosexuality
is tied to the mother in an unconscious form; in Don Juanism,
he unconsciously seeks his mother in every woman he meets.
The effects of a mother-complex on the son may be seen in the
ideology of the Cybele and Attis type: self-castration, madness,
and early death. Because of the difference in sex, a son's mothercomplex does not appear in pure form. This is the reason why
in every masculine mother-complex, side by side with the
mother archetype, a significant role is played by the image of
the man's sexual counterpart, the anima. The mother is the first
feminine being with whom the man-to-be comes in contact, and
1 But the father-complex also plays a considerable part here.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
she cannot help playing, overtly or covertly, consciously or un
consciously, upon the son's masculinity, just as the son in his
turn grows increasingly aware of his mother's femininity, or un
consciously responds to it by instinct. In the case of the son,
therefore, the simple relationships of identity or of resistance and
differentiation are continually cut across by erotic attraction or
repulsion, which complicates matters very considerably. I do
not mean to say that for this reason the mother-complex of a
son ought to be regarded as more serious than that of a daugh
ter. The investigation of these complex psychic phenomena is
still in the pioneer stage. Comparisons will not become feasible
until we have some statistics at our disposal, and of these, so far,
there is no sign.
,6 3
Only in the daughter is the mother-complex clear and un
complicated. Here we have to do either with an overdevelop
ment of feminine instincts indirectly caused by the mother, or
with a weakening of them to the point of complete extinction.
In the first case, the preponderance of instinct makes the daugh
ter unconscious of her own personality; in the latter, the in
stincts are projected upon the mother. For the present we must
content ourselves with the statement that in the daughter a
mother-complex either unduly stimulates or else inhibits the
feminine instinct, and that in the son it injures the masculine
instinct through an unnatural sexualization.
,6 4
Since a "mother-complex" is a concept borrowed from psychopathology, it is always associated with the idea of injury and
illness. But if we take the concept out of its narrow psychopathological setting and give it a wider connotation, we can see
that it has positive effects as well. Thus a man with a mothercomplex may have a finely differentiated Eros 2 instead of, or in
addition to, homosexuality. (Something of this sort is suggested
by Plato in his Symposium.) This gives him a great capacity for
friendship, which often creates ties of astonishing tenderness
between men and may even rescue friendship between the sexes
from the limbo of the impossible. He may have good taste and
an aesthetic sense which are fostered by the presence of a femi
nine streak. Then he may be supremely gifted as a teacher be
cause of his almost feminine insight and tact. He is likely to
have a feeling for history, and to be conservative in the best
2 [Cf.
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pars. i6ff.—E DITORS.]
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
sense and cherish the values of the past. Often he is endowed
with a wealth of religious feelings, which help to bring the
ecclesia spiritualis into reality; and a spiritual receptivity which
makes him responsive to revelation.
In the same way, what in its negative aspect is Don Juanism
can appear positively as bold and resolute manliness; ambitious
striving after the highest goals; opposition to all stupidity, nar
row-mindedness, injustice, and laziness; willingness to make
sacrifices for what is regarded as right, sometimes bordering on
heroism; perseverance, inflexibility and toughness of will; a
curiosity that does not shrink even from the riddles of the uni
verse; and finally, a revolutionary spirit which strives to put a
new face upon the world.
All these possibilities are reflected in the mythological motifs
enumerated earlier as different aspects of the mother archetype.
As I have already dealt with the mother-complex of the son,
including the anima complication, elsewhere, and my present
theme is the archetype of the mother, in the following discus
sion I shall relegate masculine psychology to the background.
II. THE MOTHER-COMPLEX OF THE DAUGHTER 3
l6 7
(a) Hypertrophy of the Maternal Element—We have noted
that in the daughter the mother-complex leads either to a hyper
trophy of the feminine side or to its atrophy. The exaggeration
of the feminine side means an intensification of all female in
stincts, above all the maternal instinct. The negative aspect is
seen in the woman whose only goal is childbirth. To her the
husband is obviously of secondary importance; he is first and
foremost the instrument of procreation, and she regards him
merely as an object to be looked after, along with children, poor
relations, cats, dogs, and household furniture. Even her own
3 In the present section I propose to present a series of different "types" of mothercomplex; in formulating them, I am drawing on my own therapeutic experiences.
"Types" are not individual cases, neither are they freely invented schemata into
which all individual cases have to be fitted. "Types" are ideal instances, or pic
tures of the average run of experience, with which no single individual can be
identified. People whose experience is confined to books or psychological labora
tories can form no proper idea of the cumulative experience of a practising
psychologist.
S7
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
personality is of secondary importance; she often remains en
tirely unconscious of it, for her life is lived in and through
others, in more or less complete identification with all the ob
jects of her care. First she gives birth to the children, and from
then on she clings to them, for without them she has no exist
ence whatsoever. Like Demeter, she compels the gods by her
stubborn persistence to grant her the right of possession over
her daughter. Her Eros develops exclusively as a maternal rela
tionship while remaining unconscious as a personal one. An
unconscious Eros always expresses itself as will to power. 4
Women of this type, though continually "living for others," are,
as a matter of fact, unable to make any real sacrifice. Driven by
ruthless will to power and a fanatical insistence on their own
maternal rights, they often succeed in annihilating not only
their own personality but also the personal lives of their chil
dren. The less conscious such a mother is of her own personal
ity, the greater and the more violent is her unconscious will to
power. For many such women Baubo rather than Demeter
would be the appropriate symbol. The mind is not cultivated
for its own sake but usually remains in its original condition,
altogether primitive, unrelated, and ruthless, but also as true,
and sometimes as profound, as Nature herself. 5 She herself does
not know this and is therefore unable to appreciate the wittiness of her mind or to marvel philosophically at its profundity;
like as not she will immediately forget what she has said.
(b) Overdevelopment of Eros.—It by no means follows that
the complex induced in a daughter by such a mother must neces
sarily result in hypertrophy of the maternal instinct. Quite the
contrary, this instinct may be wiped out altogether. As a substi
tute, an overdeveloped Eros results, and this almost invariably
leads to an unconscious incestuous relationship with the father. 6
The intensified Eros places an abnormal emphasis on the per
sonality of others. Jealousy of the mother and the desire to outdo
her become the leitmotifs of subsequent undertakings, which
4 This statement is based on the repeated experience that, where love is lacking,
power fills the vacuum.
5 In my English seminars [privately distributed] I have called this the "natural
mind."
6 Here the initiative comes from the daughter. In other cases the father's psychol
ogy is responsible; his projection of the anima arouses an incestuous fixation in
the daughter.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
are often disastrous. A woman of this type loves romantic and
sensational episodes for their own sake, and is interested in mar
ried men, less for themselves than for the fact that they are mar
ried and so give her an opportunity to wreck a marriage, that
being the whole point of her manoeuvre. Once the goal is at
tained, her interest evaporates for lack of any maternal instinct,
and then it will be someone else's turn. 7 This type is noted for its
remarkable unconsciousness. Such women really seem to be
utterly blind to what they are doing, 8 which is anything but ad
vantageous either for themselves or for their victims. I need
hardly point out that for men with a passive Eros this type offers
an excellent hook for anima projections.
l6 9
(c) Identity with the Mother.—If a mother-complex in a
woman does not produce an overdeveloped Eros, it leads to
identification with the mother and to paralysis of the daughter's
feminine initiative. A complete projection of her personality on
to the mother then takes place, owing to the fact that she is
unconscious both of her maternal instinct and of her Eros.
Everything which reminds her of motherhood, responsibility,
personal relationships, and erotic demands arouses feelings of
inferiority and compels her to run away—to her mother, natu
rally, who lives to perfection everything that seems unattainable
to her daughter. As a sort of superwoman (admired involun
tarily by the daughter), the mother lives out for her beforehand
all that the girl might have lived for herself. She is content to
cling to her mother in selfless devotion, while at the same time
unconsciously striving, almost against her will, to tyrannize over
her, naturally under the mask of complete loyalty and devotion.
The daughter leads a shadow-existence, often visibly sucked dry
by her mother, and she prolongs her mother's life by a sort of
continuous blood transfusion. These bloodless maidens are by
no means immune to marriage. On the contrary, despite their
shadowiness and passivity, they command a high price on the
marriage market. First, they are so empty that a man is free
to impute to them anything he fancies. In addition, they are so
unconscious that the unconscious puts out countless invisible
7 Herein lies the difference between this type of complex and the feminine fathercomplex related to it, where the "father" is mothered and coddled.
8 This does not mean that they are unconscious of the facts. It is only their mean
ing that escapes them.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIA rE UNCONSCIOUS
feelers, veritable octopus-tentacles, that suck up all masculine
projections; and this pleases men enormously. All that feminine
indefiniteness is the longed-for counterpart of male decisiveness
and single-mindedness, which can be satisfactorily achieved only
if a man can get rid of everything doubtful, ambiguous, vague,
and muddled by projecting it upon some charming example of
feminine innocence. 9 Because of the woman's characteristic
passivity, and the feelings of inferiority which make her con
tinually play the injured innocent, the man finds himself cast
in an attractive role: he has the privilege of putting up with
the familiar feminine foibles with real superiority, and yet with
forbearance, like a true knight. (Fortunately, he remains igno
rant of the fact that these deficiencies consist largely of his own
projections.) The girl's notorious helplessness is a special attrac
tion. She is so much an appendage of her mother that she can
only flutter confusedly ivhen a man approaches. She just doesn't
know a thing. She is so inexperienced, so terribly in need of
help, that even the gentlest swain becomes a daring abductor
who brutally robs a loving mother of her daughter. Such a mar
vellous opportunity to pass himself off as a gay Lothario does
not occur every day and therefore acts as a strong incentive.
This was how Pluto abducted Persephone from the inconsol
able Demeter. But, by a decree of the gods, he had to surrender
his wife every year to his mother-in-law for the summer season.
(The attentive reader will note that such legends do not come
about by chance!)
'7°
(d) Resistance to the Mother.—These three extreme types
are linked together by many intermediate stages, of which I
shall mention only one important example. In the particular
intermediate type I have in mind, the problem is less an over
development or an inhibition of the feminine instincts than an
overwhelming resistance to maternal supremacy, often to the ex
clusion of all else. It is the supreme example of the negative
mother-complex. The motto of this type is: Anything, so long
as it is not like Mother! On one hand we have a fascination
which never reaches the point of identification; on the other, an
intensification of Eros which exhausts itself in jealous resistβ This type of woman has an oddly disarming effect on her husband, but only
until he discovers that the person he has married and who shares his nuptial bed
is his mother-in-law.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
ance. This kind of daughter knows what she does not want, but
is usually completely at sea as to what she would choose as her
own fate. All her instincts are concentrated on the mother in
the negative form of resistance and are therefore of no use to her
in building her own life. Should she get as far as marrying,
either the marriage will be used for the sole purpose of escaping
from her mother, or else a diabolical fate will present her with
a husband who shares all the essentia] traits of her mother's
character. All instinctive processes meet with unexpected dif
ficulties; either sexuality does not function properly, or the
children are unwanted, or maternal duties seem unbearable,
or the demands of marital life are responded to with impatience
and irritation. This is quite natural, since none of it has any
thing to do with the realities of life when stubborn resistance
to the power of the mother in every form has come to be life's
dominating aim. In such cases one can often see the attributes
of the mother archetype demonstrated in every detail. For ex
ample, the mother as representative of the family (or clan)
causes either violent resistances or complete indifference to any
thing that comes under the head of family, community, society,
convention, and the like. Resistance to the mother as uterus
often manifests itself in menstrual disturbances, failure of con
ception, abhorrence of pregnancy, hemorrhages and excessive
vomiting during pregnancy, miscarriages, and so on. The
mother as materia, 'matter,' may be at the back of these women's
impatience with objects, their clumsy handling of tools and
crockery and bad taste in clothes.
lTi
Again, resistance to the mother can sometimes result in a
spontaneous development of intellect for the purpose of creat
ing a sphere of interest in which the mother has no place. This
development springs from the daughter's own needs and not at
all for the sake of a man whom she would like to impress or
dazzle by a semblance of intellectual comradeship. Its real pur
pose is to break the mother's power by intellectual criticism and
superior knowledge, so as to enumerate to her all her stupidi
ties, mistakes in logic, and educational shortcomings. Intellec
tual development is often accompanied by the emergence of
masculine traits in general.
4-
POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE
MOTHER-COMPLEX
I. THE MOTHER
'72
The positive aspect of the first type of complex, namely the
overdevelopment of the maternal instinct, is identical with that
well-known image of the mother which has been glorified in all
ages and all tongues. This is the mother-love which is one of the
most moving and unforgettable memories of cur lives, the mys
terious root of all growth and change; the love that means
homecoming, shelter, and the long silence from which every
thing begins and in which everything ends. Intimately known
and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like
fate, joyous and untiring giver of life—mater dolorosa and mute
implacable portal that closes upon the dead. Mother is motherlove, my experience and my secret. Why risk saying too much,
too much that is false and inadequate and beside the point,
about that human being who was our mother, the accidental
carrier of that great experience which includes herself and my
self and all mankind, and indeed the whole of created nature,
the experience of life whose children we are? The attempt to
say these things has always been made, and probably always will
be; but a sensitive person cannot in all fairness load that enor
mous burden of meaning, responsibility, duty, heaven and hell,
on to the shoulders of one frail and fallible human being—so
deserving of love, indulgence, understanding, and forgiveness—
who ivas our mother. He knows that the mother carries for us
that inborn image of the mater nature and mater spiritualis, of
the totality of life of which we are a small and helpless part.
Nor should we hesitate for one moment to relieve the human
mother of this appalling burden, for our own sakes as well as
hers. It is just this massive weight of meaning that ties us to the
mother and chains her to her child, to the physical and mental
92
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
detriment of both. A mother-complex is not got rid of by
blindly reducing the mother to human proportions. Besides that
we run the risk of dissolving the experience "Mother" into
atoms, thus destroying something supremely valuable and
throwing away the golden key which a good fairy laid in our
cradle. That is why mankind has always instinctively added the
pre-existent divine pair to the personal parents—the "god"father and "god"-mother of the newborn child—so that, from
sheer unconsciousness or shortsighted rationalism, he should
never forget himself so far as to invest his own parents with
divinity.
!73
The archetype is really far less a scientific problem than an
urgent question of psychic hygiene. Even if all proofs of the
existence of archetypes were lacking, and all the clever people
in the world succeeded in convincing us that such a thing could
not possibly exist, we would have to invent them forthwith in
order to keep our highest and most important values from dis
appearing into the unconscious. For when these fall into the un
conscious the whole elemental force of the original experience
is lost. What then appears in its place is fixation on the motherimago; and when this has been sufficiently rationalized and
"corrected," we are tied fast to human reason and condemned
from then on to believe exclusively in what is rational. That is
a virtue and an advantage on the one hand, but on the other a
limitation and impoverishment, for it brings us nearer to the
bleakness of doctrinairism and "enlightenment." This ϋέεββε
Raison emits a deceptive light which illuminates only what we
know already, but spreads a darkness over all those things which
it would be most needful for us to know and become conscious
of. The more independent "reason" pretends to be, the more it
turns into sheer intellectuality which puts doctrine in the place
of reality and shows us man not as he is but how it wants him
to be.
l
74
Whether he understands them or not, man must remain
conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still
a part of Nature and is connected with his own roots. A view of
the world or a social order that cuts him off from the primordial
images of life not only is no culture at all but, in increasing
degree, is a prison or a stable. If the primordial images remain
conscious in some form or other, the energy that belongs to
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
them can flow freely into man. But when it is no longer pos
sible to maintain contact with them, then the tremendous sum
of energy stored up in these images, which is also the source of
the fascination underlying the infantile parental complex, falls
back into the unconscious. The unconscious then becomes
charged with a force that acts as an irresistible vis a tergo to
whatever view or idea or tendency our intellect may choose
to dangle enticingly before our desiring eyes. In this way man is
delivered over to his conscious side, and reason becomes the
arbiter of right and wrong, of good and evil. I am far from wish
ing to belittle the divine gift of reason, man's highest faculty.
But in the role of absolute tyrant it has no meaning—no more
than light would have in a world where its counterpart, dark
ness, was absent. Man would do well to heed the wise counsel of
the mother and obey the inexorable law of nature which sets
limits to every being. He ought never to forget that the world
exists only because opposing forces are held in equilibrium. So,
too, the rational is counterbalanced by the irrational, and what
is planned and purposed by what is.
J 75
This excursion into the realm of generalities was unavoid
able, because the mother is the first world of the child and the
last world of the adult. We are all wrapped as her children in
the mantle of this great Isis. But let us now return to the differ
ent types of feminine mother-complex. It may seem strange that
I am devoting so much more time to the mother-complex in
woman than to its counterpart in man. The reason for this has
already been mentioned: in a man, the mother-complex is neveT
"pure," it is always mixed with the anima archetype, and the
consequence is that a man's statements about the mother are
always emotionally prejudiced in the sense of showing "animos
ity." Only in women is it possible to examine the effects of the
mother archetype without admixture of animosity, and even
this has prospects of success only when no compensating animus
has developed.
II. THE OVERDEVELOPED EROS
»76
I drew a very unfavourable picture of this type as we encoun
ter it in the field of psychopathology. But this type, uninviting
94
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
as it appears, also has positive aspects which society could ill
afford to do without. Indeed, behind what is possibly the worst
effect of this attitude, the unscrupulous wrecking of marriages,
we can see an extremely significant and purposeful arrangement
of nature. This type often develops in reaction to a mother who
is wholly a thrall of nature, purely instinctive and therefore alldevouring. Such a mother is an anachronism, a throw-back to a
primitive state of matriarchy where the man leads an insipid
existence as a mere procreator and serf of the soil. The reactive
intensification of the daughter's Eros is aimed at some man who
ought to be rescued from the preponderance of the femalematernal element in his life. A woman of this type instinctively
intervenes when provoked by the unconsciousness of the mar
riage partner. She will disturb that comfortable ease so danger
ous to the personality of a man but frequently regarded by him
as marital faithfulness. This complacency leads to blank uncon
sciousness of his own personality and to those supposedly ideal
marriages where he is nothing but Dad and she is nothing but
Mom, and they even call each other that. This is a slippery path
that can easily degrade marriage to the level of a mere breedingpen.
»77
A woman of this type directs the burning ray of her Eros
upon a man whose life is stifled by maternal solicitude, and by
doing so she arouses a moral conflict. Yet without this there can
be no consciousness of personality. "But why on earth," you
may ask, "should it be necessary for man to achieve, by hook or
by crook, a higher level of consciousness?" This is truly the cru
cial question, and I do not find the answer easy. Instead of a real
answer I can only make a confession of faith: I believe that,
after thousands and millions of years, someone had to realize
that this wonderful world of mountains and oceans, suns and
moons, galaxies and nebulae, plants and animals, exists. From a
low hill in the Athi plains of East Africa I once watched the vast
herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as they had
done from time immemorial, touched only by the breath of a
primeval world. I felt then as if I were the first man, the first
creature, to know that all this is. The entire world round me
was still in its primeval state; it did not know that it was. And
then, in that one moment in which I came to know, the world
sprang into being; without that moment it would never have
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
been. All Nature seeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man,
but only in the most highly developed and most fully conscious
man. Every advance, even the smallest, along this path of con
scious realization adds that much to the world.
»78
There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally
struggles to extricate itself from the primal warmth and primal
darkness of the maternal womb; in a word, from unconscious
ness. Divine curiosity yearns to be born and does not shrink
from conflict, suffering, or sin. Unconsciousness is the primal
sin, evil itself, for the Logos. Therefore its first creative act of
liberation is matricide, and the spirit that dared all heights and
all depths must, as Synesius says, suffer the divine punishment,
enchainment on the rocks of the Caucasus. Nothing can exist
without its opposite; the two were one in the beginning and
will be one again in the end. Consciousness can only exist
through continual recognition of the unconscious, just as every
thing that lives must pass through many deaths.
J 79
The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true
sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and
emotions, and like every other fire it has two aspects, that of
combustion and that of creating light. On the one hand, emo
tion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into
existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes (omnes
superfluities comburit). But on the other hand, emotion is the
moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for
emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change
from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without
emotion.
180
The woman whose fate it is to be a disturbing element is not
solely destructive, except in pathological cases. Normally the
disturber is herself caught in the disturbance; the worker of
change is herself changed, and the glare of the fire she ignites
both illuminates and enlightens all the victims of the entangle
ment. What seemed a senseless upheaval becomes a process of
purification:
So that all that is vain
Might dwindle and wane. 1
l Faust, Part II, Act 5.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
If a woman of this type remains unconscious of the meaning
of her function, if she does not know that she is
Part of that power which would
Ever work evil but engenders good,2
she will herself perish by the sword she brings. But conscious
ness transforms her into a deliverer and redeemer.
III. THE "NOTHING-BUT" DAUGHTER
The woman of the third type, who is so identified with the
mother that her own instincts are paralysed through projection,
need not on that account remain a hopeless nonentity forever.
On the contrary, if she is at all normal, there is a good chance of
the empty vessel being filled by a potent anima projection. In
deed, the fate of such a woman depends on this eventuality; she
can never find herself at all, not even approximately, without
a man's help; she has to be literally abducted or stolen from her
mother. Moreover, she must play the role mapped out for her
for a long time and with great effort, until she actually comes to
loathe it. In this way she may perhaps discover who she really is.
Such women may become devoted and self-sacrificing wives of
husbands whose whole existence turns on their identification
with a profession or a great talent, but who, for the rest, are
unconscious and remain so. Since they are nothing but masks
themselves, the wife, too, must be able to play the accompanying
part with a semblance of naturalness. But these women some
times have valuable gifts which remained undeveloped only be
cause they were entirely unconscious of their own personality.
They may project the gift or talent upon a husband who lacks it
himself, and then we have the spectacle of a totally insignificant
man who seemed to have no chance whatsoever suddenly Soar
ing as if on a magic carpet to the highest summits of achieve
ment. Cherchez la femme, and you have the secret of his suc
cess. These women remind me—if I may be forgiven the impolite
comparison—of hefty great bitches who turn tail before the
smallest cur simply because he is a terrible male and it never
occurs to them to bite him.
2
Ibid., Part I, Act i.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
183
Finally, it should be remarked that emptiness is a great femi
nine secret. It is something absolutely alien to man; the chasm,
the unplumbed depths, the yin. The pitifulness o£ this vacuous
nonentity goes to his heart (I speak here as a man), and one is
tempted to say that this constitutes the whole "mystery" of
woman. Such a female is fate itself. A man may say what he likes
about it; be for it or against it, or both at once; in the end he
falls, absurdly happy, into this pit, or, if he doesn't, he has
missed and bungled his only chance of making a man of himself.
In the first case one cannot disprove his foolish good luck to
him, and in the second one cannot make his misfortune seem
plausible. "The Mothers, the Mothers, how eerily it sounds!" 3
With this sigh, which seals the capitulation of the male as he
approaches the realm of the Mothers, we will turn to the fourth
type.
IV. THE NEGATIVE MOTHER-COMPLEX
L84
AS a pathological phenomenon this type is an unpleasant,
exacting, and anything but satisfactory partner for her husband,
since she rebels in every fibre of her being against everything
that springs from natural soil. However, there is no reason why
increasing experience of life should not teach her a thing or two,
so that for a start she gives up fighting the mother in the per
sonal and restricted sense. But even at her best she will remain
hostile to all that is dark, unclear, and ambiguous, and will cul
tivate and emphasize everything certain and clear and reason
able. Excelling her more feminine sister in her objectivity and
coolness of judgment, she may become the friend, sister, and
competent adviser of her husband. Her own masculine aspira
tions make it possible for her to have a human understanding
of the individuality of her husband quite transcending the
realm of the erotic. The woman with this type of mother-com
plex probably has the best chance of all to make her marriage
an outstanding success during the second half of life. But this is
true only if she succeeds in overcoming the hell of "nothing but
femininity," the chaos of the maternal womb, which is her great
est danger because of her negative complex. As we know, a com3 Ibid., Part II, Act 1.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
plex can be really overcome only if it is lived out to the full. In
other words, if we are to develop further we have to draw to us
and drink down to the very dregs what, because of our com
plexes, we have held at a distance.
'85
This type started out in the world with averted face, like
Lot's wife looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah. And all the
while the world and life pass by her like a dream—an annoying
source of illusions, disappointments, and irritations, all of which
are due solely to the fact that she cannot bring herself to look
straight ahead for once. Because of her merely unconscious,
reactive attitude toward reality, her life actually becomes domi
nated by what she fought hardest against—the exclusively mater
nal feminine aspect. But if she should later turn her face, she
will see the world for the first time, so to speak, in the light of
maturity, and see it embellished with all the colours and en
chanting wonders of youth, and sometimes even of childhood.
It is a vision that brings knowledge and discovery of truth, the
indispensable prerequisite for consciousness. A part of life was
lost, but the meaning of life has been salvaged for her.
186
Th e woman who fights against her father still has the possi
bility of leading an instinctive, feminine existence, because
she rejects only what is alien to her. But when she fights against
the mother she may, at the risk of injury to her instincts, attain
to greater consciousness, because in repudiating the mother she
repudiates all that is obscure, instinctive, ambiguous, and un
conscious in her own nature. Thanks to her lucidity, objectivity,
and masculinity, a woman of this type is frequently found in
important positions in which her tardily discovered maternal
quality, guided by a cool intelligence, exerts a most beneficial
influence. This rare combination of womanliness and masculine
understanding proves valuable in the realm of intimate relation
ships as well as in practical matters. As the spiritual guide and
adviser of a man, such a woman, unknown to the world, may
play a highly influential part. Owing to her qualities, the mascu
line mind finds this type easier to understand than women with
other forms of mother-complex, and for this reason men often
favour her with the projection of positive mother-complexes.
The excessively feminine woman terrifies men who have a
mother-complex characterized by great sensitivity. But this
woman is not frightening to a man, because she builds bridges
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
for the masculine mind over which he can safely guide his feel
ings to the opposite shore. Her clarity of understanding inspires
him with confidence, a factor not to be underrated and one that
is absent from the relationship between a man and a woman
much more often than one might think. The man's Eros does
not lead upward only but downward into that uncanny dark
world of Hecate and Kali, which is a horror to any intellectual
man. The understanding possessed by this type of woman will
be a guiding star to him in the darkness and seemingly unend
ing mazes of life.
5.
l8
7
CONCLUSION
From what has been said it should be clear that in the last
analysis all the statements of mythology on this subject as well
as the observed effects of the mother-complex, when stripped of
their confusing detail, point to the unconscious as their place
of origin. How else could it have occurred to man to divide the
cosmos, on the analogy of day and night, summer and winter,
into a bright day-world and a dark night-world peopled with
fabulous monsters, unless he had the prototype of such a division
in himself, in the polarity between the conscious and the invis
ible and unknowable unconscious? Primitive man's perception
of objects is conditioned only partly by the objective behaviour
of the things themselves, whereas a much greater part is often
played by intrapsychic facts which are not related to the exter
nal objects except by way of projection.1 This is due to the
simple fact that the primitive has not yet experienced that
ascetic discipline of mind known to us as the critique of knowl
edge. To him the world is a more or less fluid phenomenon
within the stream of his own fantasy, where subject and object
are undifferentiated and in a state of mutual interpenetration.
"All that is outside, also is inside," we could say with Goethe.
But this "inside," which modern rationalism is so eager to de
rive from "outside," has an a priori structure of its own that
antedates all conscious experience. It is quite impossible to con
ceive how "experience" in the widest sense, or, for that matter,
anything psychic, could originate exclusively in the outside
world. The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life, and it
has its own peculiar structure and form like every other organ
ism. Whether this psychic structure and its elements, the arche
types, ever "originated" at all is a metaphysical question and
therefore unanswerable. The structure is something given, the
precondition that is found to be present in every case. And this
is the mother, the matrix-the form into which all experience is
Ι [Cf. above, "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious," par. 7.-EDITORS.]
IOl
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
poured. The father, on the other hand, represents the dynamism
of the archetype, for the archetype consists of both—form and
energy.
188
The carrier of the archetype is in the first place the personal
mother, because the child lives at first in complete participation
with her, in a state of unconscious identity. She is the psychic as
well as the physical precondition of the child. With the awaken
ing of ego-consciousness the participation gradually weakens,
and consciousness begins to enter into opposition to the uncon
scious, its own precondition. This leads to differentiation of the
ego from the mother, whose personal peculiarities gradually
become more distinct. All the fabulous and mysterious quali
ties attaching to her image begin to fall away and are transferred
to the person closest to her, for instance the grandmother. As
the mother of the mother, she is "greater" than the latter; she
is in truth the "grand" or "Great Mother." Not infrequently
she assumes the attributes of wisdom as well as those of a witch.
For the further the archetype recedes from consciousness and
the clearer the latter becomes, the more distinctly does the
archetype assume mythological features. The transition from
mother to grandmother means that the archetype is elevated to
a higher rank. This is clearly demonstrated in a notion held by
the Bataks. The funeral sacrifice in honour of a dead father is
modest, consisting of ordinary food. But if the son has a son of
his own, then the father has become a grandfather and has con
sequently attained a more dignified status in the Beyond, and
very important offerings are made to him. 2
189
AS the distance between conscious and unconscious in
creases, the grandmother's more exalted rank transforms her
into a "Great Mother," and it frequently happens that the opposites contained in this image split apart. We then get a good
fairy and a wicked fairy, or a benevolent goddess and one who is
malevolent and dangerous. In Western antiquity and especially
in Eastern cultures the opposites often remain united in the
same figure, though this paradox does not disturb the primitive
mind in the least. The legends about the gods are as full of con
tradictions as are their moral characters. In the West, the para
doxical behaviour and moral ambivalence of the gods scandal
ized people even in antiquity and gave rise to criticism that led
2
Wamecke, Die Religion der Batak.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
finally to a devaluation of the Olympians on the one hand and
to their philosophical interpretation on the other. The clearest
expression of this is the Christian reformation of the Jewish
concept of the Deity: the morally ambiguous Yahweh became
an exclusively good God, while everything evil was united in
the devil. It seems as if the development of the feeling function
in Western man forced a choice on him which led to the moral
splitting of the divinity into two halves. In the East the pre
dominantly intuitive intellectual attitude left no room for feel
ing values, and the gods—Kali is a case in point—could retain
their original paradoxical morality undisturbed. Thus Kali is
representative of the East and the Madonna of the West. The
latter has entirely lost the shadow that still distantly followed
her in the allegories of the Middle Ages. It was relegated to the
hell of popular imagination, where it now leads an insignificant
existence as the devil's grandmother. 3 Thanks to the develop
ment of feeling-values, the splendour of the "light" god has
been enhanced beyond measure, but the darkness supposedly
represented by the devil has localized itself in man. This strange
development was precipitated chiefly by the fact that Christian
ity, terrified of Manichaean dualism, strove to preserve its mon
otheism by main force. But since the reality of darkness and
evil could not be denied, there was no alternative but to make
man responsible for it. Even the devil was largely, if not en
tirely, abolished, with the result that this metaphysical figure,
who at one time was an integral part of the Deity, was introjected into man, who thereupon became the real carrier of the
mysterium iniquitatis: "omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab
homine." In recent times this development has suffered a dia
bolical reverse, and the wolf in sheep's clothing now goes about
whispering in our ear that evil is really nothing but a misunder
standing of good and an effective instrument of progress. We
think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for
good and all, and nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of
man's soul. In this way he turns himself into the devil, for
the devil is half of the archetype whose irresistible power makes
even unbelievers ejaculate "Oh God!" on every suitable and
unsuitable occasion. If one can possibly avoid it, one ought
never to identify with an archetype, for, as psychopathology
8 [A familiar figure of speech in German—E DITORS.]
103
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
and certain contemporary events show, the consequences are
terrifying.
»90
Western man has sunk to such a low level spiritually that he
even has to deny the apotheosis of untamed and untameable
psychic power—the divinity itself—so that, after swallowing evil,
he may possess himself of the good as well. If you read Nietzsche's
Zarathustra with attention and psychological understanding,
you will see that he has described with rare consistency and with
the passion of a truly religious person the psychology of the
"Superman" for whom God is dead, and who is himself burst
asunder because he tried to imprison the divine paradox within
the narrow framework of the mortal man. Goethe has wisely
said: "What terror then shall seize the Superman!"—and was
rewarded with a supercilious smile from the Philistines. His
glorification of the Mother who is great enough to include in
herself both the Queen of Heaven and Maria Aegyptiaca is
supreme wisdom and profoundly significant for anyone willing
to reflect upon it. But what can one expect in an age when the
official spokesmen of Christianity publicly announce their in
ability to understand the foundations of religious experience!
I extract the following sentence from an article by a Protestant
theologian: "We understand ourselves—whether naturalistically
or idealistically—to be homogeneous creatures who are not so
peculiarly divided that alien forces can intervene in our inner
life, as the New Testament supposes." 4 (Italics mine.) The
author is evidently unacquainted with the fact that science
demonstrated the lability and dissociability of consciousness
more than half a century ago and proved it by experiment. Our
conscious intentions are continually disturbed and thwarted, to
a greater or lesser degree, by unconscious intrusions whose
causes are at first strange to us. The psyche is far from being a
homogeneous unit—on the contrary, it is a boiling cauldron of
contradictory impulses, inhibitions, and affects, and for many
people the conflict between them is so insupportable that they
even wish for the deliverance preached by theologians. Deliver
ance from what? Obviously, from a highly questionable psychic
state. The unity of consciousness or of the so-called personality
is not a reality at all but a desideratum. I still have a vivid mem
ory of a certain philosopher who also raved about this unity and
4
Buri, Theologie und Philosophic," p. 117, [Quoting Rudolf Bultmann.—EM.]
104
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
used to consult me about his neurosis: he was obsessed by the
idea that he was suffering from cancer. I do not know how many
specialists he had consulted already, and how many X-ray pic
tures he had had made. They all assured him that he had no
cancer. He himself told me: "I know I have no cancer, but I
still could have one." Who is responsible for this "imaginary"
idea? He certainly did not make it himself; it was forced on him
by an "alien" power. There is little to choose between this state
and that of the man possessed in the New Testament. Now
whether you believe in a demon of the air or in a factor in the
unconscious that plays diabolical tricks on you is all one to me.
The fact that man's imagined unity is menaced by alien powers
remains the same in either case. Theologians would do better to
take account for once of these psychological facts than to go on
"demythologizing" them with rationalistic explanations that are
a hundred years behind the times.
#
191
I have tried in the foregoing to give a survey of the psychic
phenomena that may be attributed to the predominance of the
mother-image. Although I have not always drawn attention to
them, my reader will presumably have had no difficulty in rec
ognizing those features which characterize the Great Mother
mythologically, even when they appear under the guise of personalistic psychology. When we ask patients who are particu
larly influenced by the mother-image to express in words or pic
tures what "Mother" means to them—be it positive or negative—
we invariably get symbolical figures which must be regarded as
direct analogies of the mythological mother-image. These analo
gies take us into a field that still requires a great deal more work
of elucidation. At any rate, I personally do not feel able to say
anything definitive about it. If, nevertheless, I venture to offer
a few suggestions, they should be regarded as altogether provi
sional and tentative.
192
Above all, I should like to point out that the mother-image
in a man's psychology is entirely different in character from a
woman's. For a woman, the mother typifies her own conscious
life as conditioned by her sex. But for a man the mother typifies
something alien, which he has yet to experience and which is
filled with the imagery latent in the unconscious. For this
105
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
'93
»94
reason, if for no other, the mother-image of a man is essentially
different from a woman's. The mother has from the outset a
decidedly symbolical significance for a man, which probably
accounts for his strong tendency to idealize her. Idealization is
a hidden apotropaism; one idealizes whenever there is a secret
fear to be exorcized. What is feared is the unconscious and its
magical influence. 5
Whereas for a man the mother is ipso facto symbolical, for a
woman she becomes a symbol only in the course of her psycho
logical development. Experience reveals the striking fact that
the Urania type of mother-image predominates in masculine
psychology, whereas in a woman the chthonic type, or Earth
Mother, is the most frequent. During the manifest phase of the
archetype an almost complete identification takes place. A
woman can identify directly with the Earth Mother, but a man
cannot (except in psychotic cases). As mythology shows, one of
the peculiarities of the Great Mother is that she frequently
appears paired with her male counterpart. Accordingly the man
identifies with the son-lover on whom the grace of Sophia has
descended, with a pner aeternus or a filius sapientiae. But the
companion of the chthonic mother is the exact opposite: an
ithyphallic Hermes (the Egyptian Bes) or a lingam. In India
this symbol is of the highest spiritual significance, and in the
West Hermes is one of the most contradictory figures of Hellen
istic syncretism, which was the source of extremely important
spiritual developments in Western civilization. He is also the
god of revelation, and in the unofficial nature philosophy of the
early Middle Ages he is nothing less than the world-creating
Nous itself. This mystery has perhaps found its finest expres
sion in the words of the Tabula smaragdina: "omne superius
sicut inferius" (as it is above, so it is below).
It is a psychological fact that as soon as we touch on these
identifications we enter the realm of the syzygies, the paired
opposites, where the One is never separated from the Other, its
antithesis. It is a field of personal experience which leads di
rectly to the experience of individuation, the attainment of the
self. A vast number of symbols for this process could be mus
tered from the medieval literature of the West and even more
B Obviously a daughter can idealize her mother too, but for this special circum
stances are needed, whereas in a man idealization is almost the normal thing.
106
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
from the storehouses of Oriental wisdom, but in this matter
words and ideas count for little. Indeed, they may become dan
gerous bypaths and false trails. In this still very obscure field of
psychological experience, where we are in direct contact, so to
speak, with the archetype, its psychic power is felt in full force.
This realm is so entirely one of immediate experience that it
cannot be captured by any formula, but can only be hinted at to
one who already knows. He will need no explanations to under
stand what was the tension of opposites expressed by Apuleius
in his magnificent prayer to the Queen of Heaven, when he as
sociates "heavenly Venus" with "Proserpina, who strikest terror
with midnight ululations": 6 it was the terrifying paradox of the
primordial mother-image.
#
J 95
When, in 1938, I originally wrote this paper, I naturally
did not know that twelve years later the Christian version of
the mother archetype would be elevated to the rank of a dog
matic truth. The Christian "Queen of Heaven" has, obviously,
shed all her Olympian qualities except for her brightness, good
ness, and eternality; and even her human body, the thing most
prone to gross material corruption, has put on an ethereal in
corruptibility. The richly varied allegories of the Mother of
God have nevertheless retained some connection with her pagan
prefigurations in Isis (Io) and Semele. Not only are Isis and the
Horus-child iconological exemplars, but the ascension of Semele,
the originally mortal mother of Dionysus, likewise anticipates
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Further, this son of
Semele is a dying and resurgent god and the youngest of the
Olympians. Semele herself seems to have been an earth-goddess,
just as the Virgin Mary is the earth from which Christ was born.
This being so, the question naturally arises for the psychologist:
what has become of the characteristic relation of the motherimage to the earth, darkness, the abysmal side of the bodily man
with his animal passions and instinctual nature, and to "matter"
in general? The declaration of the dogma comes at a time
when the achievements of science and technology, combined
with a rationalistic and materialistic view of the world, threaten
e"Nocturnis ululatibus horrenda Proserpina." Cf. Symbols of Transformation,
par. 148.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
the spiritual and psychic heritage of man with instant annihila
tion. Humanity is arming itself, in dread and fascinated horror,
for a stupendous crime. Circumstances might easily arise when
the hydrogen bomb would have to be used and the unthinkably
frightful deed became unavoidable in legitimate self-defence.
In striking contrast to this disastrous turn of events, the Mother
of God is now enthroned in heaven; indeed, her Assumption
has actually been interpreted as a deliberate counterstroke to
the materialistic doctrinairism that provoked the chthonic pow
ers into revolt. Just as Christ's appearance in his own day cre
ated a real devil and adversary of God out of what was originally
a son of God dwelling in heaven, so now, conversely, a heavenly
figure has split off from her original chthonic realm and taken
up a counter-position to the titanic forces of the earth and the
underworld that have been unleashed. In the same way that the
Mother of God was divested of all the essential qualities of
materiality, matter became completely de-souled, and this at a
time when physics is pushing forward to insights which, if they
do not exactly "de-materialize" matter, at least endue it with
properties of its ολνη and make its relation to the psyche a prob
lem that can no longer be shelved. For just as the tremendous
advancement of science led at first to a premature dethrone
ment of mind and to an equally ill-considered deification of
matter, so it is this same urge for scientific knowledge that is
now attempting to bridge the huge gulf that has opened out
between the two Weltansckanungen. The psychologist inclines
to see in the dogma of the Assumption a symbol which, in a
sense, anticipates this whole development. For him the relation
ship to the earth and to matter is one of the inalienable qual
ities of the mother archetype. So that when a figure that is con
ditioned by this archetype is represented as having been taken
up into heaven, the realm of the spirit, this indicates a union of
earth and heaven, or of matter and spirit. The approach of nat
ural science will almost certainly be from the other direction:
it will see in matter itself the equivalent of spirit, but this
"spirit" will appear divested of all, or at any rate most, of its
known qualities, just as earthly matter was stripped of its spe
cific characteristics when it staged its entry into heaven. Never
theless, the way will gradually be cleared for a union of the two
principles.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE
196
Understood concretely, the Assumption is the absolute oppo
site of materialism. Taken in this sense, it is a counterstroke that
does nothing to diminish the tension between the opposites, but
drives it to extremes.
•97
Understood symbolically, however, the Assumption of the
body is a recognition and acknowledgment of matter, which in
the last resort was identified with evil only because of an over
whelmingly "pneumatic" tendency in man. In themselves, spirit
and matter are neutral, or rather, "utriusque capax"—that is,
capable of what man calls good or evil. Although as names they
are exceedingly relative, underlying them are very real opposites
that are part of the energic structure of the physical and of the
psychic world, and without them no existence of any kind could
be established. There is no position without its negation. In
spite or just because of their extreme opposition, neither can exist
without the other. It is exactly as formulated in classical Chinese
philosophy: yang (the light, warm, dry, masculine principle)
contains within it the seed of yin (the dark, cold, moist, feminine
principle), and vice versa. Matter therefore would contain the
seed of spirit and spirit the seed of matter. The long-known
"synchronistic" phenomena that have now been statistically
confirmed by Rhine's experiments 7 point, to all appearances,
in this direction. The "psychization" of matter puts the absolute
immateriality of spirit in question, since this would then have
to be accorded a kind of substantiality. The dogma of the As
sumption, proclaimed in an age suffering from the greatest
political schism history has ever known, is a compensating
symptom that reflects the strivings of science for a uniform
world-picture. In a certain sense, both developments were antici
pated by alchemy in the hieros gamos of opposites, but only in
symbolic form. Nevertheless, the symbol has the great advantage
of being able to unite heterogeneous or even incommensurable
factors in a single image. With the decline of alchemy the
symbolical unity of spirit and matter fell apart, with the result
that modern man finds himself uprooted and alienated in a
de-souled world.
>98
The alchemist saw the union of opposites under the symbol
of the tree, and it is therefore not surprising that the uncon
scious of present-day man, who no longer feels at home in his
7 Cf. my "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle."
109
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
world and can base his existence neither on the past that is no
more nor on the future that is yet to be, should hark back to
the symbol of the cosmic tree rooted in this world and growing
up to heaven—the tree that is also man. In the history of symbols
this tree is described as the way of life itself, a growing into that
which eternally is and does not change; which springs from the
union of opposites and, by its eternal presence, also makes that
union possible. It seems as if it were only through an experi
ence of symbolic reality that man, vainly seeking his own "ex
istence" and making a philosophy out of it, can find his way
back to a world in which he is no longer a stranger.
1 IO
III
CONCERNING REBIRTH
This paper represents the substance of a lecture which I delivered
on the spur of the moment at the Eranos meeting in 1939. In putting
it into written form I have made use of the stenographic notes
which were taken at the meeting. Certain portions had to be
omitted, chiefly because the requirements of a printed text are different from those of the spoken word. However, so far as possible, I
have carried out my original intention of summing up the content
of my lecture on the theme of rebirth, and have also endeavoured
to reproduce my analysis of the Eighteenth Sura of the Koran as an
example of a rebirth mystery. I have added some references to source
material, which the reader may welcome. My summary does not purport to be more than a survey of a field of knowledge which can only
be treated very superficially in the framework of a lecture.-c. G. J.
[First published as a lecture, "Die verschiedenen Aspekte der Wiedergeburt,"
in Eranos-Jahrbuch I939 (Zurich, 1940). Revised and expanded as "Ober Wiedergeburt," Gestaltungen des Unbewussten (Zurich, 1950)' from which the present
translation is roade.-EDITORS.)
1.
FORMS OF REBIRTH
199
The concept of rebirth is not always used in the same sense.
Since this concept has various aspects, it may be useful to re
view its different meanings. The five different forms which I am
going to enumerate could probably be added to if one were to
go into greater detail, but I venture to think that my definitions
cover at least the cardinal meanings. In the first part of my ex
position, I give a brief summary of the different forms of re
birth, while the second part presents its various psychological
aspects. In the third part, I give an example of a rebirth mystery
from the Koran.
200
1. Metempsychosis. The first of the five aspects of rebirth
to which I should like to draw attention is that of metempsy
chosis, or transmigration of souls. According to this view, one's
life is prolonged in time by passing through different bodily
existences; or, from another point of view, it is a life-sequence
interrupted by different reincarnations. Even in Buddhism,
where this doctrine is of particular importance—the Buddha
himself experienced a very long sequence of such rebirths—it is
by no means certain whether continuity of personality is guar
anteed or not: there may be only a continuity of karma. The
Buddha's disciples put this question to him during his lifetime,
but he never made any definite statement as to whether there is
or is not a continuity of personality. 1
201
2. Reincarnation. This concept of rebirth necessarily im
plies the continuity of personality. Here the human personality
is regarded as continuous and accessible to memory, so that,
when one is incarnated or born, one is able, at least potentially,
to remember that one has lived through previous existences and
that these existences were one's own, i.e., that they had the same
ego-form as the present life. As a rule, reincarnation means re
birth in a human body.
1 Cf.
the Samyutla-Nikaya (Book of the Kindred Sayings), Part II: The Nidana
Book, pp.
150!.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
zoz
3. Resurrection. This means a re-establishment of human
existence after death. A new element enters here: that of the
change, transmutation, or transformation of one's being. The
change may be either essential, in the sense that the resurrected
being is a different one; or nonessential, in the sense that only
the general conditions of existence have changed, as when one
finds oneself in a different place or in a body which is differently
constituted. It may be a carnal body, as in the Christian assump
tion that this body will be resurrected. On a higher level, the
process is no longer understood in a gross material sense; it is
assumed that the resurrection of the dead is the raising up of
the corpus glortficationisj the "subtle body," in the state of in
corruptibility.
203
4. Rebirth (renovatio). The fourth form concerns rebirth
in the strict sense; that is to say, rebirth within the span of
individual life. The English word rebirth is the exact equivalent
of the German Wiedergeburt, but the French language seems to
lack a term having the peculiar meaning of "rebirth." This word
has a special flavour; its whole atmosphere suggests the idea of
renovatio, renewal, or even of improvement brought about by
magical means. Rebirth may be a renewal without any change
of being, inasmuch as the personality which is renewed is not
changed in its essential nature, but only its functions, or parts
of the personality, are subjected to healing, strengthening, or
improvement. Thus even bodily ills may be healed through re
birth ceremonies.
204
Another aspect of this fourth form is essential transforma
tion, i.e., total rebirth of the individual. Here the renewal
implies a change of his essential nature, and may be called a
transmutation. As examples we may mention the transforma
tion of a mortal into an immortal being, of a corporeal into a
spiritual being, and of a human into a divine being. \Vellknown prototypes of this change are the transfiguration and
ascension of Christ, and the assumption of the Mother of God
into heaven after her death, together with her body. Similar
conceptions are to be found in Part II of Goethe's Faust; for
instance, the transformation of Faust into the boy and then into
Doctor Marianus.
205
5· Participation in the process of transformation. The fifth
and last form is indirect rebirth. Here the transformation is
114
CONCERNING REBIRTH
brought about not directly, by passing through death and re
birth oneself, but indirectly, by participating in a process of
transformation which is conceived of as taking place outside the
individual. In other words, one has to witness, or take part in,
some rite of transformation. This rite may be a ceremony such
as the Mass, where there is a transformation of substances.
Through his presence at the rite the individual participates in
divine grace. Similar transformations of the Deity are to be
found in the pagan mysteries; there too the initiate sharing the
experience is vouchsafed the gift of grace, as we know from
the Eleusinian mysteries. A case in point is the confession of the
initiate in the Eleusinian mysteries, who praises the grace con
ferred through the certainty of immortality.2
2 Cf. the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, verses 480-82: "Blessed is he among men
who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and has no part in them,
never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom."
(Trans, by Evelyn-White, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, p. 323.)
And in an Eleusinian epitaph we read:
"Truly the blessed gods have proclaimed a most beautiful secret:
Death comes not as a curse, but as a blessing to men."
2.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REBIRTH
Rebirth is not a process that we can in any way observe. We
can neither measure nor weigh nor photograph it. It is entirely
beyond sense perception. We have to do here with a purely
psychic reality, which is transmitted to us only indirectly
through personal statements. One speaks of rebirth; one pro
fesses rebirth; one is filled with rebirth. This we accept as suffi
ciently real. We are not concerned here with the question: is
rebirth a tangible process of some sort? We have to be content
with its psychic reality. I hasten to add that I am not alluding
to the vulgar notion that anything "psychic" is either nothing
at all or at best even more tenuous than a gas. Quite the con
trary; I am of the opinion that the psyche is the most tremendous
fact of human life. Indeed, it is the mother of all human facts;
of civilization and of its destroyer, war. All this is at first psychic
and invisible. So long as it is "merely" psychic it cannot be ex
perienced by the senses, but is nonetheless indisputably real.
The mere fact that people talk about rebirth, and that there is
such a concept at all, means that a store of psychic experiences
designated by that term must actually exist. What these expe
riences are like we can only infer from the statements that have
been made about them. So, if we want to find out what rebirth
really is, we must turn to history in order to ascertain what
"rebirth" has been understood to mean.
Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the
primordial affirmations of mankind. These primordial affirma
tions are based on what I call archetypes. In view of the fact that
all affirmations relating to the sphere of the suprasensual are, in
the last analysis, invariably determined by archetypes, it is not
surprising that a concurrence of affirmations concerning rebirth
can be found among the most widely differing peoples. There
must be psychic events underlying these affirmations which it is
the business of psychology to discuss—without entering into all
the metaphysical and philosophical assumptions regarding their
116
CONCERNING REBIRTH
significance. In order to obtain a general view of their phe
nomenology, it is necessary to sketch the whole field of trans
formation experiences in sharper outline. Two main groups of
experience may be distinguished: that of the transcendence of
life, and that of one's own transformation.
I. EXPERIENCE OF THE TRANSCENDENCE OF LIFE
208
a. Experiences induced by ritual. By the "transcendence of
life" I mean those aforementioned experiences of the initiate
who takes part in a sacred rite which reveals to him the perpet
ual continuation of life through transformation and renewal.
In these mystery-dramas the transcendence of life, as distinct
from its momentary concrete manifestations, is usually repre
sented by the fateful transformations—death and rebirth—of a
god or a godlike hero. The initiate may either be a mere witness
of the divine drama or take part in it or be moved by it, or he
may see himself identified through the ritual action with the
god. In this case, what really matters is that an objective sub
stance or form of life is ritually transformed through some proc
ess going on independently, while the initiate is influenced,
impressed, "consecrated," or granted "divine grace" on the
mere ground of his presence or participation. The transforma
tion process takes place not within him but outside him, al
though he may become involved in it. The initiate who ritually
enacts the slaying, dismemberment, and scattering of Osiris,
and afterwards his resurrection in the green wheat, experiences
in this way the permanence and continuity of life, which out
lasts all changes of form and, phoenix-like, continually rises
anew from its own ashes. This participation in the ritual event
gives rise, among other effects, to that hope of immortality
which is characteristic of the Eleusinian mysteries. 1
*°9
A living example of the mystery drama representing the
permanence as well as the transformation of life is the Mass. If
we observe the congregation during this sacred rite we note all
degrees of participation, from mere indifferent attendance to
the profoundest emotion. The groups of men standing about
1 [Cf. infra, "The Psychology of the Kore," and Kerinyi's companion essays in
Essays on a Science of Mythology.—EDITORS.]
117
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
near the exit, who are obviously engaged in every sort of worldly
conversation, crossing themselves and genuflecting in a purely
mechanical way—even they, despite their inattention, partici
pate in the sacral action by their mere presence in this place
where grace abounds. The Mass is an extramundane and extratemporal act in which Christ is sacrificed and then resurrected
in the transformed substances; and this rite of his sacrificial
death is not a repetition of the historical event but the original,
unique, and eternal act. The experience of the Mass is there
fore a participation in the transcendence of life, which over
comes all bounds of space and time. It is a moment of eternity
in time.2
b. Immediate Experiences. All that the mystery drama
represents and brings about in the spectator may also occur in
the form of a spontaneous, ecstatic, or visionary experience,
without any ritual. Nietzsche's Noontide Vision is a classic
example of this kind.3 Nietzsche, as we know, substitutes for the
Christian mystery the myth of Dionysus-Zagreus, who was dis
membered and came to life again. His experience has the char
acter of a Dionysian nature myth: the Deity appears in the garb
of Nature, as classical antiquity saw it,4 and the moment of
eternity is the noonday hour, sacred to Pan: "Hath time flown
away? Do I not fall? Have I not fallen—hark!—into the well of
eternity?" Even the "golden ring," the "ring of return," appears
to him as a promise of resurrection and life.5 It is just as if
Nietzsche had been present at a performance of the mysteries.
Many mystic experiences have a similar character: they
represent an action in which the spectator becomes involved
though his nature is not necessarily changed. In the same way,
the most beautiful and impressive dreams often have no lasting
or transformative effect on the dreamer. He may be impressed
by them, but he does not necessarily see any problem in them.
The event then naturally remains "outside," like a ritual action
performed by others. These more aesthetic forms of experience
must be carefully distinguished from those which indubitably
involve a change of one's nature.
2 Cf. my "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass."
3 Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans, by Common, pp. 31$fi.
4 Ibid.: An old, bent and gnarled tree, hung with grapes."
6 Horneffer, Nietzsches Lehre von der ewigen Wiederkehr.
Il8
CONCERNING REBIRTH
II. SUBJECTIVE TRANSFORMATION
212
Transformations of personality are by no means rare occur
rences. Indeed, they play a considerable role in psychopathology,
although they are rather different from the mystical experiences
just discussed, which are not easily accessible to psychological
investigation. However, the phenomena we are now about to
examine belong to a sphere quite familiar to psychology.
a. Diminution of personality. Anexampleofthealteration
of personality in the sense of diminution is furnished by what is
known in primitive psychology as "loss of soul." The peculiar
condition covered by this term is accounted for in the mind of
the primitive by the supposition that a soul has gone off, just
like a dog that runs away from his master overnight. It is then
the task of the medicine-man to fetch the fugitive back. Often
the loss occurs suddenly and manifests itself in a general ma
laise. The phenomenon is closely connected with the nature of
primitive consciousness, which lacks the firm coherence of our
own. We have control of our will power, but the primitive has
not. Complicated exercises are needed if he is to pull himself
together for any activity that is conscious and intentional and
not just emotional and instinctive. Our consciousness is safer
and more dependable in this respect; but occasionally something
similar can happen to civilized man, only he does not describe
it as "loss of soul" but as an "abaissement du niveau mental,"
Janet's apt term for this phenomenon. 6 It is a slackening of the
tensity of consciousness, which might be compared to a low
barometric reading, presaging bad weather. The tonus has given
way, and this is felt subjectively as listlessness, moroseness, and
depression. One no longer has any wish or courage to face the
tasks of the day. One feels like lead, because no part of one's
body seems willing to move, and this is due to the fact that one
no longer has any disposable energy. 7 This well-known phe
nomenon corresponds to the primitive's loss of soul. The list
lessness and paralysis of will can go so far that the whole
personality falls apart, so to speak, and consciousness loses its
β Les Neuroses, p. 558.
7 The gana phenomena described by Count Keyserling (South-American Medi·
tations, pp. 161 ff.) come into this category.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
unity; the individual parts of the personality make themselves
independent and thus escape from the control of the conscious
mind, as in the case of anaesthetic areas or systematic amnesias.
The latter are well known as hysterical "loss of function" phe
nomena. This medical term is analogous to the primitive loss
of soul.
214
Abaissement du niveau mental can be the result of physical
and mental fatigue, bodily illness, violent emotions, and shock,
of which the last has a particularly deleterious effect on one's
self-assurance. The abaissement always has a restrictive influence
on the personality as a whole. It reduces one's self-confidence
and the spirit of enterprise, and, as a result of increasing egocentricity, narrows the mental horizon. In the end it may lead
to the development of an essentially negative personality, which
means that a falsification of the original personality has super
vened.
215
b. Enlargement of personality. The personality is seldom,
in the beginning, what it will be later on. For this reason the
possibility of enlarging it exists, at least during the first half of
life. The enlargement may be effected through an accretion
from without, by new vital contents finding their way into the
personality from outside and being assimilated. In this way a
considerable increase of personality may be experienced. We
therefore tend to assume that this increase comes only from
without, thus justifying the prejudice that one becomes a per
sonality by stuffing into oneself as much as possible from outside.
But the more assiduously we follow this recipe, and the more
stubbornly we believe that all increase has to come from with
out, the greater becomes our inner poverty. Therefore, if some
great idea takes hold of us from outside, we must understand
that it takes hold of us only because something in us responds to
it and goes out to meet it. Richness of mind consists in mental
receptivity, not in the accumulation of possessions. What comes
to us from outside, and, for that matter, everything that rises
up from within, can only be made our own if we are capable of
an inner amplitude equal to that of the incoming content. Real
increase of personality means consciousness of an enlargement
that flows from inner sources. Without psychic depth we can
never be adequately related to the magnitude of our object. It
has therefore been said quite truly that a man grows with the
ISO
CONCERNING REBIRTH
greatness of his task. But he must have within himself the
capacity to grow; otherwise even the most difficult task is of no
benefit to him. More likely he will be shattered by it.
216
A classic example of enlargement is Nietzsche's encounter
with Zarathustra, which made of the critic and aphorist a tragic
poet and prophet. Another example is St. Paul, who, on his way
to Damascus, was suddenly confronted by Christ. True though
it may be that this Christ of St. Paul's would hardly have been
possible without the historical Jesus, the apparition of Christ
came to St. Paul not from the historical Jesus but from the
depths of his own unconscious.
217
When a summit of life is reached, when the bud unfolds
and from the lesser the greater emerges, then, as Nietzsche says,
"One becomes Two," and the greater figure, which one always
was but which remained invisible, appears to the lesser per
sonality with the force of a revelation. He who is truly and
hopelessly little will always drag the revelation of the greater
down to the level of his littleness, and will never understand that
the day of judgment for his littleness has dawned. But the man
who is inwardly great will know that the long expected friend
of his soul, the immortal one, has now really come, "to lead
captivity captive"; 8 that is, to seize hold of him by whom this
immortal had always been confined and held prisoner, and to
make his life flow into that greater life—a moment of deadliest
peril! Nietzsche's prophetic vision of the Tightrope Walker 9
reveals the awful danger that lies in having a "tightrope-walk
ing" attitude towards an event to which St. Paul gave the most
exalted name he could find.
il8
Christ himself is the perfect symbol of the hidden immortal
within the mortal man. 10 Ordinarily this problem is symbolized
by a dual motif such as the Dioscuri, one of whom is mortal and
the other immortal. An Indian parallel is the parable of the
two friends:
Behold, upon the selfsame tree,
Two birds, fast-bound companions, sit.
8 Ephesians 4 : 8 .
"Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body." Thus Spake Zarathustra,
8
P- 74·
1O Cf. "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," pars. 220ff.
121
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
This one enjoys the ripened fruit,
The other looks, but does not eat.
On such a tree my spirit crouched,
Deluded by its powerlessness,
Till seeing with joy how great its Lord,
It found from sorrow swift release. . . .11
Another notable parallel is the Islamic legend of the meet
ing of Moses and Khidr,12 to which I shall return later on. Natu
rally the transformation of personality in this enlarging sense
does not occur only in the form of such highly significant ex
periences. There is no lack of more trivial instances, a list of
which could easily be compiled from the clinical history of
neurotic patients. Indeed, any case where the recognition of a
greater personality seems to burst an iron ring round the heart
must be included in this category.13
c. Change of internal structure. We now come to changes
of personality which imply neither enlargement nor diminu
tion but a structural alteration. One of the most important
forms is the phenomenon of possession: some content, an idea
or a part of the personality, obtains mastery of the individual
for one reason or another. The contents which thus take posses
sion appear as peculiar convictions, idiosyncrasies, stubborn
plans, and so forth. As a rule, they are not open to correction.
One has to be an especially good friend of the possessed person
and willing to put up with almost anything if one is to attempt
to deal with such a condition. I am not prepared to lay down
any hard and fast line of demarcation between possession and
paranoia. Possession can be formulated as identity of the egopersonality with a complex.14
A common instance of this is identity with the persona,
which is the individual's system of adaptation to, or the manner
he assumes in dealing with, the world. Every calling or profesIi Shvetashvatara Upanishad 4, 6ff. (Trans, based on Hume, The Thirteen Prin
cipal Vpanishadsj pp. 403!!.).
1^ Koran, 18th Sura.
13 I have discussed one such case of a widening of the personality in my inaugural
dissertation, "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena."
I i For the Church's view of possession see de Tonquidec, Les Maladies nerveuses
ou mentales et Ies manifestations diaboliques; also "A Psychological Approach to
the Dogma of the Trinity," p. 163, n. 15.
CONCERNING REBIRTH
sion, for example, has its own characteristic persona. It is easy
to study these things nowadays, when the photographs of public
personalities so frequently appear in the press. A certain kind
of behaviour is forced on them by the world, and professional
people endeavour to come up to these expectations. Only, the
danger is that they become identical with their personas-the
professor with his text-book, the tenor with his voice. Then
the damage is done; henceforth he lives exclusively against the
background of his own biography. For by that time it is written:
". . . then he went to such and such a place and said this or
that," etc. The garment of Deianeira has grown fast to his skin,
and a desperate decision like that of Heracles is needed if he is
to tear this Nessus shirt from his body and step into the consum
ing fire of the flame of immortality, in order to transform
himself into what he really is. One could say, with a little
exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not,
but which oneself as well as others think one is.15 In any case
the temptation to be what one seems to be is great, because the
persona is usually rewarded in cash.
There are still other factors which may take possession of
the individual, one of the most important being the so-called
"inferior function." This is not the place to enter into a de
tailed discussion of this problem; 18 I should only like to point
out that the inferior function is practically identical with the
dark side of the human personality. The darkness which clings
to every personality is the door into the unconscious and the
gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the
shadow and the anima, step into our nightly visions or, remain
ing invisible, take possession of our ego-consciousness. A man
who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own
light and falling into his own traps. Whenever possible, he pre
fers to make an unfavourable impression on others. In the long
run luck is always against him, because he is living below his
own level and at best only attains what does not suit him. And
if there is no doorstep for him to stumble over, he manufactures
one for himself and then fondly believes he has done something
useful.
1B
In this connection, Schopenhauer's "The Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms" (Essays
from the Parerga and Paralipomena) could be read with profit.
W This important problem is discussed in detail in Ch. II of Psychological Types.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
223
Possession caused by the anima or animus presents a different
picture. Above all, this transformation of personality gives
prominence to those traits which are characteristic of the oppo
site sex; in man the feminine traits, and in woman the mascu
line. In the state of possession both figures lose their charm and
their values; they retain them only when they are turned away
from the world, in the introverted state, when they serve as
bridges to the unconscious. Turned towards the world, the
anima is fickle, capricious, moody, uncontrolled and emotional,
sometimes gifted with daemonic intuitions, ruthless, malicious,
untruthful, bitchy, double-faced, and mystical. 17 The animus is
obstinate, harping on principles, laying down the law, dogmatic,
world-reforming, theoretic, word-mongering, argumentative,
and domineering. 18 Both alike have bad taste: the anima sur
rounds herself with inferior people, and the animus lets him
self be taken in by second-rate thinking.
224
Another form of structural change concerns certain unusual
observations about which I speak only with the utmost reserve.
I refer to states of possession in which the possession is caused
by something that could perhaps most fitly be described as an
"ancestral soul," by which I mean the soul of some definite
forebear. For all practical purposes, such cases may be regarded
as striking instances of identification with deceased persons.
(Naturally, the phenomena of identity only occur after the
"ancestor's" death.) My attention was first drawn to such possi
bilities by Leon Daudet's confused but ingenious book
L'Heredo. Daudet supposes that, in the structure of the person
ality, there are ancestral elements which under certain condi
tions may suddenly come to the fore. The individual is then
precipitately thrust into an ancestral role. Now we know that
ancestral roles play a very important part in primitive psy
chology, Not only are ancestral spirits supposed to be reincar
nated in children, but an attempt is made to implant them into
*7 Cf. the apt description of the anima in Aldrovandus, Dendrologiae libri duo
(1668, p. 211): "She appeared both very soft and very hard at the same time, and
while for some two thousand years she had made a show of inconstant looks like
a Proteus, she bedevilled the love of Lucius Agatho Priscus, then a citizen of
Bologna, with anxious cares and sorrows, which assuredly were conjured up from
chaos, or from what Plato calls Agathonian confusion." There is a similar descrip
tion in Fierz-David, The Dream of Poliphilo, pp. i8gff.
is Cf. Emma Jung, "On the Nature of the Animus."
CONCERNING REBIRTH
the child by naming him after an ancestor. So, too, primitives
try to change themselves back into their ancestors by means of
certain rites. I would mention especially the Australian concep
tion of the alcheringamijina/0 ancestral souls, half man and half
animal, whose reactivation through religious rites is of the
greatest functional significance for the life of the tribe. Ideas of
this sort, dating back to the Stone Age, were widely diffused, as
may be seen from numerous other traces that can be found else
where. It is therefore not improbable that these primordial
forms of experience may recur even today as cases of identifica
tion with ancestral souls, and I believe I have seen such cases.
225
d. Identification with a group. We shall now discuss an
other form of transformation experience which I would call
identification with a group. More accurately speaking, it is the
identification of an individual with a number of people who,
as a group, have a collective experience of transformation. This
special psychological situation must not be confused with par
ticipation in a transformation rite, which, though performed
before an audience, does not in any way depend upon group
identity or necessarily give rise to it. To experience transforma
tion in a group and to experience it in oneself are two totally
different things. If any considerable group of persons are united
and identified with one another by a particular frame of mind,
the resultant transformation experience bears only a very re
mote resemblance to the experience of individual transforma
tion. A group experience takes place on a lower level of
consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due
to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one
common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is
below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large
group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an
animal, which is the reason why the ethical attitude of large
organizations is always doubtful. The psychology of a large
crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology.20 If,
therefore, I have a so-called collective experience as a member of
a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness than if
I had the experience by myself alone. That is why this group
experience is very much more frequent than an individual ex
perience of transformation. It is also much easier to achieve,
"Cf. Ldvy-Bruhl, La Mythologie primitive.
2°Le Bon, The Crowd.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
because the presence of so many people together exerts great
suggestive force. The individual in a crowd easily becomes the
victim of his own suggestibility. It is only necessary for some
thing to happen, for instance a proposal backed by the whole
crowd, and we too are all for it, even if the proposal is immoral.
In the crowd one feels no responsibility, but also no fear.
226
Thus identification with the group is a simple and easy path
to follow, but the group experience goes no deeper than the
level of one's own mind in that state. It does work a change in
you, but the change does not last. On the contrary, you must
have continual recourse to mass intoxication in order to con
solidate the experience and your belief in it. But as soon as you
are removed from the crowd, you are a different person again
and unable to reproduce the previous state of mind. The mass
is swayed by participation mystique, which is nothing other than
an unconscious identity. Supposing, for example, you go to the
theatre: glance meets glance, everybody observes everybody
else, so that all those who are present are caught up in an
invisible web of mutual unconscious relationship. If this condi
tion increases, one literally feels borne along by the universal
wave of identity with others. It may be a pleasant feeling—one
sheep among ten thousand! Again, if I feel that this crowd is a
great and wonderful unity, I am a hero, exalted along with the
group. When I am myself again, I discover that I am Mr. So-andSo, and that I live in such and such a street, on the third floor.
I also find that the whole affair was really most delightful, and
I hope it will take place again tomorrow so that I may once
more feel myself to be a whole nation, which is much better
than being just plain Mr. X. Since this is such an easy and con
venient way of raising one's personality to a more exalted rank,
mankind has always formed groups which made collective expe
riences of transformation—often of an ecstatic nature—possible.
The regressive identification with lower and more primitive
states of consciousness is invariably accompanied by a height
ened sense of life; hence the quickening effect of regressive
identifications with half-animal ancestors 21 in the Stone Age.
22 7
The inevitable psychological regression within the group is
21
The alcheringamijina. Cf. the rites of Australian tribes, in Spencer and Gillen,
The Northern Tribes of Central Australia; also Livy-Bruhl, La Mythologie primitive.
CONCERNING REBIRTH
partially counteracted by ritual, that is to say through a cult
ceremony which makes the solemn performance of sacred events
the centre of group activity and prevents the crowd from re
lapsing into unconscious instinctuality. By engaging the individ
ual's interest and attention, the ritual makes it possible for him
to have a comparatively individual experience even within the
group and so to remain more or less conscious. But if there is
no relation to a centre which expresses the unconscious through
its symbolism, the mass psyche inevitably becomes the hypnotic
focus of fascination, drawing everyone under its spell. That is
why masses are always breeding-grounds of psychic epidemics,22
the events in Germany being a classic example of this.
228
it will be objected to this essentially negative evaluation of
mass psychology that there are also positive experiences, for
instance a positive enthusiasm which spurs the individual to
noble deeds, or an equally positive feeling of human solidarity.
Facts of this kind should not be denied. The group can give the
individual a courage, a bearing, and a dignity which may easily
get lost in isolation. It can awaken within him the memory of
being a man among men. But that does not prevent something
else from being added which he would not possess as an in
dividual. Such unearned gifts may seem a special favour of the
moment, but in the long run there is a danger of the gift becom
ing a loss, since human nature has a weak habit of taking gifts
for granted; in times of necessity we demand them as a right in
stead of making the effort to obtain them ourselves. One sees
this, unfortunately, only too plainly in the tendency to demand
everything from the State, without reflecting that the State con
sists of those very individuals who make the demands. The
logical development of this tendency leads to Communism,
where each individual enslaves the community and the latter is
represented by a dictator, the slave-owner. All primitive tribes
characterized by a communistic order of society also have a
chieftain over them with unlimited powers. The Communist
State is nothing other than an absolute monarchy in which there
are no subjects, but only serfs.
22I would remind the reader of the catastrophic panic which broke out in New
York on the occasion [1938] of a broadcast dramatization of H. G. Wells' War of
the Worlds shortly before the second World War [see Cantril 1 The Invasion from
Mars (1940)], and which was later [1949] repeated in Quito.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
«9
e. Identification with a cult-hero. Another important iden
tification underlying the transformation experience is that with
the god or hero who is transformed in the sacred ritual. Many
cult ceremonies are expressly intended to bring this identity
about, an obvious example being the Metamorphosis of Apuleius. The initiate, an ordinary human being, is elected to be
Helios; he is crowned with a crown of palms and clad in the
mystic mantle, whereupon the assembled crowd pays homage to
him. The suggestion of the crowd brings about his identity with
the god. The participation of the community can also take place
in the following way: there is no apotheosis of the initiate, but
the sacred action is recited, and then, in the course of long
periods of time, psychic changes gradually occur in the individ
ual participants. The Osiris cult offers an excellent example of
this. At first only Pharaoh participated in the transformation of
the god, since he alone "had an Osiris"; but later the nobles
of the Empire acquired an Osiris too, and finally this develop
ment culminated in the Christian idea that everyone has an
immortal soul and shares directly in the Godhead. In Chris
tianity the development was carried still further when the outer
God or Christ gradually became the inner Christ of the individ
ual believer, remaining one and the same though dwelling in
many. This truth had already been anticipated by the psy
chology of totemism: many exemplars of the totem animal are
killed and consumed during the totem meals, and yet it is only
the One who is being eaten, just as there is only one Christ-child
and one Santa Claus.
sS0
In the mysteries, the individual undergoes an indirect trans
formation through his participation in the fate of the god. The
transformation experience is also an indirect one in the Chris
tian Church, inasmuch as it is brought about by participation in
something acted or recited. Here the first form, the dromenon,
is characteristic of the richly developed ritual of the Catholic
Church; the second form, the recitation, the "Word" or "gos
pel," is practised in the "preaching of the Word" in Protestant
ism.
sS1
f. Magical procedures. A further form of transformation is
achieved through a rite used directly for this purpose. Instead
of the transformation experience coming to one through par
ticipation in the rite, the rite is used for the express purpose of
128
CONCERNING REBIRTH
effecting the transformation. It thus becomes a sort of tech
nique to which one submits oneself. For instance, a man is ill
and consequently needs to be "renewed." The renewal must
"happen" to him from outside, and to bring this about, he is
pulled through a hole in the wall at the head of his sick-bed,
and now he is reborn; or he is given another name and thereby
another soul, and then the demons no longer recognize him; or
he has to pass through a symbolical death; or, grotesquely
enough, he is pulled through a leathern cow, which devours
him, so to speak, in front and then expels him behind; or he
undergoes an ablution or baptismal bath and miraculously
changes into a semi-divine being with a new character and an
altered metaphysical destiny.
232
g. Technical transformation. Besidestheuseoftheritein
the magical sense, there are still other special techniques in
which, in addition to the grace inherent in the rite, the personal
endeavour of the initiate is needed in order to achieve the in
tended purpose. It is a transformation experience induced by
technical means. The exercises known in the East as yoga and
in the West as exercitia spiritualia come into this category.
These exercises represent special techniques prescribed in ad
vance and intended to achieve a definite psychic effect, or at
least to promote it. This is true both of Eastern yoga and of the
methods practised in the West. 23 They are, therefore, technical
procedures in the fullest sense of the word; elaborations of the
originally natural processes of transformation. The natural or
spontaneous transformations that occurred earlier, before there
were any historical examples to follow, were thus replaced by
techniques designed to induce the transformation by imitating
this same sequence of events. I will try to give an idea of the
way such techniques may have originated by relating a fairy
story:
z 33
There was once a queer old man who lived in a cave, where
he had sought refuge from the noise of the villages. He was re
puted to be a sorcerer, and therefore he had disciples who hoped
to learn the art of sorcery from him. But he himself was not
thinking of any such thing. He was only seeking to know what
it was that he did not know, but which, he felt certain, was
always happening. After meditating for a very long time on
2Ϊ
"The Psychology of Eastern Meditation."
129
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
that which is beyond meditation, he saw no other way of escape
from his predicament than to take a piece of Ted chalk and
draw all kinds of diagrams on the walls of his cave, in order to
find out what that which he did not know might look like. After
many attempts he hit on the circle. "That's right," he felt, "and
now for a quadrangle inside it!"—which made it better still. His
disciples were curious; but all they could make out was that
the old man was up to something, and they would have given
anything to know what he was doing. But when they asked him:
"What are you doing there?" he made no reply. Then they dis
covered the diagrams on the wall and said: "That's itl"—and
they all imitated the diagrams. But in so doing they turned the
whole process upside down, without noticing it: they antici
pated the result in the hope of making the process repeat itself
which had led to that result. This is how it happened then and
how it still happens today.
2 34
h. Natural transformation (individuation). As I have
pointed out, in addition to the technical processes of transforma
tion there are also natural transformations. All ideas of rebirth
are founded on this fact. Nature herself demands a death and a
rebirth. As the alchemist Democritus says: "Nature rejoices in
nature, nature subdues nature, nature rules over nature." There
are natural transformation processes which simply happen to
us, whether we like it or not, and whether we know it or not.
These processes develop considerable psychic effects, which
would be sufficient in themselves to make any thoughtful per
son ask himself what really happened to him. Like the old man
in our fairytale, he, too, will draw mandalas and seek shelter
in their protective circle; in the perplexity and anguish of his
self-chosen prison, which he had deemed a refuge, he is trans
formed into a being akin to the gods. Mandalas are birth-places,
vessels of birth in the most literal sense, lotus-flowers in which
a Buddha comes to life. Sitting in the lotus-seat, the yogi sees
himself transfigured into an immortal.
*35
Natural transformation processes announce themselves
mainly in dreams. Elsewhere 24 I have presented a series of
dream-symbols of the process of individuation. They were
dreams which without exception exhibited rebirth symbolism.
In this particular case there was a long-drawn-out process of
24 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, Part II.
130
CONCERNING REBIRTH
inner transformation and rebirth into another being. This
"other being" is the other person in ourselves—that larger and
greater personality maturing within us, whom we have already
met as the inner friend of the soul. That is why we take comfort
whenever we find the friend and companion depicted in a ritual,
an example being the friendship between Mithras and the sungod. This relationship is a mystery to the scientific intellect,
because the intellect is accustomed to regard these things un·
sympathetically. But if it made allowance for feeling, we would
discover that it is the friend whom the sun-god takes with him
on his chariot, as shown in the monuments. It is the representa
tion of a friendship between two men which is simply the outer
reflection of an inner fact: it reveals our relationship to that
inner friend of the soul into whom Nature herself would like to
change us—that other person who we also are and yet can never
attain to completely. We are that pair of Dioscuri, one of whom
is mortal and the other immortal, and who, though always to
gether, can never be made completely one. The transformation
processes strive to approximate them to one another, but our
consciousness is aware of resistances, because the other person
seems strange and uncanny, and because we cannot get accus
tomed to the idea that we are not absolute master in our own
house. We should prefer to be always "I" and nothing else. But
we are confronted with that inner friend or foe, and whether he
is our friend or our foe depends on ourselves.
236
You need not be insane to hear his voice. On the contrary,
it is the simplest and most natural thing imaginable. For in
stance, you can ask yourself a question to which "he" gives
answer. The discussion is then carried on as in any other con
versation. You can describe it as mere "associating" or "talking
to oneself," or as a "meditation" in the sense used by the old
alchemists, who referred to their interlocutor as aliquem aliurn
internum, 'a certain other one, within.' 25 This form of colloquy
with the friend of the soul was even admitted by Ignatius
Loyola into the technique of his Exercitia spiritualia/ 6 but with
the limiting condition that only the person meditating is
26 Cf. Ruland, Lexicon {1893 edn.), p. 826.
26 Izquierdo, Pratica di alcuni Esercitij spirituali di S. Ignatio (Rome, 1686, p. 7):
"A colloquy . . . is nothing else than to talk and communicate familiarly with
Christ."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
2 37
allowed to speak, whereas the inner responses are passed over as
being merely human and therefore to be repudiated. This state
of things has continued down to the present day. It is no longer
a moral or metaphysical prejudice, but—what is much worse—
an intellectual one. The "voice" is explained as nothing but
"associating," pursued in a witless way and running on and on
without sense or purpose, like the works of a clock that has no
dial. Or we say "It is only my own thoughts!" even if, on
closer inspection, it should turn out that they are thoughts
which we either reject or had never consciously thought at ali
as if everything psychic that is glimpsed by the ego had always
formed part of it! Naturally this hybris serves the useful pur
pose of maintaining the supremacy of ego-consciousness, which
must be safeguarded against dissolution into the unconscious.
But it breaks down ignominiously if ever the unconscious
should choose to let some nonsensical idea become an obsession
or to produce other psychogenic symptoms, for which we would
not like to accept responsibility on any account.
Our attitude towards this inner voice alternates between two
extremes: it is regarded either as undiluted nonsense or as the
voice of God. It does not seem to occur to any one that there
might be something valuable in between. The "other" may be
just as one-sided in one way as the ego is in another. And yet the
conflict between them may give rise to truth and meaning—but
only if the ego is willing to grant the other its rightful personal
ity. It has, of course, a personality anyway, just as have the voices
of insane people; but a real colloquy becomes possible only
when the ego acknowledges the existence of a partner to the dis
cussion. This cannot be expected of everyone, because, after all,
not everyone is a fit subject for exercitia spiritualia. Nor can it
be called a colloquy if one speaks only to oneself or only ad
dresses the other, as is the case with George Sand in her conver
sations with a "spiritual friend": 20a for thirty pages she talks ex
clusively to herself while one waits in vain for the other to reply.
The colloquy of the exercitia may be followed by that silent
grace in which the modern doubter no longer believes. But
what if it were the supplicated Christ himself who gave imme
diate answer in the words of the sinful human heart? What fear
ful abysses of doubt would then be opened? What madness
2ea ["Daily Conversations with Dr. Piffoel," in her Intimate Journal.—EDITORS.]
13¾
CONCERNING REBIRTH
should we not then have to fear? From this one can understand
that images of the gods are better mute, and that ego-conscious
ness had better believe in its own supremacy rather than go on
"associating." One can also understand why that inner friend
so often seems to be our enemy, and why he is so far off and
his voice so low. For he who is near to him "is near to the fire."
238
Something of this sort may have been in the mind of the
alchemist who wrote: "Choose for your Stone him through
whom kings are honoured in their crowns, and through whom
physicians heal their sick, for he is near to the fire." 27 The al
chemists projected the inner event into an outer figure, so for
them the inner friend appeared in the form of the "Stone," of
which the Tractatus aureus says: "Understand, ye sons of the
wise, what this exceeding precious Stone crieth out to you:
Protect me and I will protect thee. Give me what is mine that
I may help thee." 28 To this a scholiast adds: "The seeker after
truth hears both the Stone and the Philosopher speaking as if
out of one mouth." 29 The Philosopher is Hermes, and the
Stone is identical with Mercurius, the Latin Hermes. 30 From
the earliest times, Hermes was the mystagogue and psychopomp
of the alchemists, their friend and counsellor, who leads them
to the goal of their work. He is "like a teacher mediating be
tween the stone and the disciple." 31 To others the friend ap
pears in the shape of Christ or Khidr or a visible or invisible
guru, or some other personal guide or leader figure. In this
case the colloquy is distinctly one-sided: there is no inner dia27 A Pseudo-Aristotle quotation in Rosarium philosophorum (1550), fol. Q.
28 "Largiri vis mihi meum" is the usual reading, as in the first edition (1556) °f
Ars chcmica, under the title "Septem tractatus seu capitula Hermetis Trismegisti
aurei," and also in Theatrum chemicurn, IV (1613), and Manget, Bibliatheca
chemica, I (1702), pp. -jooff. In the Rosarium philosophorum (1550), fol. E T ,
there is a different reading: "Largire mihi ius meum ut te adiuvem" (Give me my
due that I may help thee). This is one of the interpretative readings for which
the anonymous author of the Rosarium is responsible. Despite their arbitrariness
they have an important bearing on the interpretation of alchemy. [Cf. Psychology
29 Biblio. chem., I, p. 430b.
and Alchemy, par. 139, n.17.]
30 Detailed documentation in Psychology and Alchemy, par. 84, and "The Spirit
Mercurius," pars. 278ff., 2871!.
3i"Tanquam praeceptor intermedius inter lapidem et discipulum. ( Biblio.
chem., I. ρ 430b.) Cf. the beautiful prayer of Astrampsychos, beginning "Come to
me, Lord Hermes," and ending "I am thou and thou art I. (Reitzenstein,
Poimandres, p. 21.)
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
2 39
logue, but instead the response appears as the action of the
other, i.e., as an outward event. The alchemists saw it in the
transformation of the chemical substance. So if one of them
sought transformation, he discovered it outside in matter, whose
transformation cried out to him, as it were, "I am the transfor
mation!" But some were clever enough to know, "It is my own
transformation—not a personal transformation, but the trans
formation of what is mortal in me into what is immortal. It
shakes off the mortal husk that I am and awakens to a life of its
own; it mounts the sun-barge and may take me with it." 32
This is a very ancient idea. In Upper Egypt, near Aswan, I
once saw an ancient Egyptian tomb that had just been opened.
Just behind the entrance-door was a little basket made of reeds,
containing the withered body of a new-born infant, wrapped in
rags. Evidently the wife of one of the workmen had hastily laid
the body of her dead child in the nobleman's tomb at the last
moment, hoping that, when he entered the sun-barge in order
to rise anew, it might share in his salvation, because it had been
buried in the holy precinct within reach of divine grace.
32 The stone and its transformation are represented:
(1) as the resurrection of the h o m o p h i l o s o p h i c u s , the Second Adam ("Aurea
hora," Artis Ouriferae j 1593, I, p. 195);
(2) as the human soul ("Book of Krates," Berthelot, L a C h i m i e a u m o - y e n
age, III, p, 50);
(3) as a being below and above man; "This stone is under thee, as to obedi
ence; above thee, as to dominion; therefore from thee, as to knowledge; about
thee, as to equals" ("Rosinus ad Sarratantam," Art. aurif., I, p. 310);
(4) as life; "blood is soul and soul is life and life is our Stone" ("Tractatulus
Aristotelis," ibid., p. 364),
(5) as the resurrection of the dead ("Calidis liber secretorum," ibid., p. 347;
also "Rachaidibi fragmentum," ibid., p. 398);
(6) as the Virgin Mary ("De arte chymica," ibid., p. 582); and
(7) as man himself: "thou art its ore . . . and it is extracted from thee . . .
and it remains inseparably with thee" ("Rosinus ad Sarratantam," ibid., p. 311).
3.
A TYPICAL SET OF SYMBOLS ILLUSTRATING
THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION
I have chosen as an example a figure which plays a great role
in Islamic mysticism, namely Khidr, "the Verdant One." He ap
pears in the Eighteenth Sura of the Koran, entitled "The Cave."1
This entire Sura is taken up with a rebirth mystery. The cave
is the place of rebirth, that secret cavity in which one is shut up
in order to be incubated and renewed. The Koran says of it:
"You might have seen the rising sun decline to the right of their
cavern, and as it set, go past them on the left, while they [the
Seven Sleepers] stayed in the middle." The "middle" is the cen
tre where the jewel reposes, where the incubation or the sacri
ficial rite or the transformation takes place. The most beautiful
development of this symbolism is to be found on Mithraic altarpieces 2 and in alchemical pictures of the transformative sub
stance,3 which is always shown between sun and moon. Repre
sentations of the crucifixion frequently follow the same type,
and a similar symbolical arrangement is also found in the trans
formation or healing ceremonies of the Navahos.4 Just such a
place of the centre or of transformation is the cave in which
those seven had gone to sleep, little thinking that they would ex
perience there a prolongation of life verging on immortality.
When they awoke, they had slept 309 years.
The legend has the following meaning: Anyone who gets
into that cave, that is to say into the cave which everyone has in
himself, or into the darkness that lies behind consciousness, will
find himself involved in an—at first—unconscious process of
transformation. By penetrating into the unconscious he makes
1 [The Dawood trans, of the Koran is quoted, sometimes with modifications. The
18th Sura is at pp. 89-98.—EDITORS.]
2 Cumont1 Textes et monuments figures relatifs aux mystores de Mithra, II.
3 Cf. especially the crowning vision in the dream of Zosimos: "And another
[came] behind him, bringing one adorned round with signs, clad in white and
comely to see, who was named the Meridian of the Sun." Cf. "The Visions of
Zosiinos," par. 87 (III, ν bis).
* Matthews, The Mountain Chant, and Stevenson, Ceremonial of Hasfelti Dail]is,
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
a connection with his unconscious contents. This may re
sult in a momentous change of personality in the positive or
negative sense. The transformation is often interpreted as a
prolongation of the natural span of life or as an earnest of im
mortality. The former is the case with many alchemists, notably
Paracelsus (in his treatise De vita longa 5 ), and the latter is exem
plified in the Eleusinian mysteries.
242
Those seven sleepers indicate by their sacred number 6 that
they are gods, 7 who are transformed during sleep and thereby
enjoy eternal youth. This helps us to understand at the outset
that we are dealing with a mystery legend. The fate of the numi
nous figures recorded in it grips the hearer, because the story
gives expression to parallel processes in his own unconscious
which in that way are integrated with consciousness again. The
Tepristination of the original state is tantamount to attaining
once more the freshness of youth.
343
The story of the sleepers is followed by some moral observa
tions which appear to have no connection with it. But this ap
parent irrelevance is deceptive. In reality, these edifying com
ments are just what are needed by those who cannot be reborn
themselves and have to be content with moral conduct, that is to
5 An account of the secret doctrine hinted at in this treatise may be found in my
"Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon," pars. i6gff,
6 The different versions of the legend speak sometimes of seven and sometimes of
eight disciples. According to the account given in the Koran, the eighth is a dog.
The 18th Sura mentions still other versions: "Some will say: 'The sleepers were
three: their dog was the fourth.' Others, guessing at the unknown, will say: 'They
were five; their dog was the sixth.' And yet others: 'Seven; their dog was the
eighth.'" It is evident, therefore, that the dog is to be taken into account. This
would seem to be an instance of that characteristic wavering between seven and
eight (or three and four, as the case may be), which I have pointed out in Psy
chology and Alchemy, pars. 2oofF. There the wavering between seven and eight is
connected with the appearance of Mephistopheles, who, as we know, materialized
out of the black poodle. In the case of three and four, the fourth is the devil or
the female principle, and on a higher level the Mater Dei. (Cf. "Psychology and
Religion," pars. 124!!.) We may be dealing with the same kind of ambiguity as in
the numbering of the Egyptian nonad (paut — "company of gods'; cf. Budge, The
Cods of the Egyptians, I, p, 88). The Khidr legend relates to the persecution of
the Christians under Decius (c. A.D. 250). The scene is Ephesus, where St. John lay
"sleeping," but not dead. The seven sleepers woke up again during the reign of
Theodosius II (408-450); thus they had slept not quite 200 years.
7 The seven are the planetary gods of the ancients. Cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme
der Gnosis, pp. 2gff.
CONCERNING REBIRTH
say with adherence to the law. Very often behaviour prescribed
by rule is a substitute for spiritual transformation. 8 These edi
fying observations are then followed by the story of Moses and
his servant Joshua ben Nun:
And Moses said to his servant: "I will not cease from my wander
ings until I have reached the place where the two seas meet, even
though I journey for eighty years."
But when they had reached the place where the two seas meet,
they forgot their fish, and it took its way through a stream to the sea.
And when they had journeyed past this place, Moses said to his
servant: "Bring us our breakfast, for we are weary from this jour
ney."
But the other replied: "See what has befallen me! When we were
resting there by the rock, I forgot the fish. Only Satan can have put
it out of my mind, and in wondrous fashion it took its way to the
sea."
Then Moses said: "That is the place we seek." And they went
back the way they had come. And they found one of Our servants,
whom We had endowed with Our grace and Our wisdom. Moses
said to him: "Shall I follow you, that you may teach me for my
guidance some of the wisdom you have learnt?"
But he answered: "You will not bear with me, for how should you
bear patiently with things you cannot comprehend?"
Moses said: "If Allah wills, you shall find me patient; I shall not
in anything disobey you."
He said: "If you are bent on following me, you must ask no ques
tion about anything till I myself speak to you concerning it."
The two set forth, but as soon as they embarked, Moses' com
panion bored a hole in the bottom of the ship.
"A strange thing you have done!" exclaimed Moses. "Is it to
drown her passengers that you have bored a hole in her?"
8 Obedience under the law on the one hand, and the freedom of the "children of
God," the reborn, on the other, is discussed at length in the Epistles of St, Paul.
He distinguishes not only between two different classes of men, who are separated
by a greater or lesser development of consciousness, but also between the higher
and lower man in one and the same individual. The sarkikos (carnal man) re
mains eternally under the law; the pneumatikos (spiritual man) alone is capable
of being reborn into freedom. This is quite in keeping with what seems such an
insoluble paradox: the Church demanding absolute obedience and at the same
time proclaiming freedom from the law. So, too, in the Koran text, the legend
appeals to the pneumatikos and promises rebirth to him that has ears to hear. But
he who, like the sarkikos, has no inner ear will find satisfaction and safe guidance
in blind submission to Allah's will.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
"Did I not tell you," he replied, "that you would not bear with
me?"
"Pardon my forgetfulness," said Moses. "Do not be angry with me
on this account."
They journeyed on until they fell in with a certain youth. Moses'
companion slew him, and Moses said: "You have killed an innocent
man who has done no harm. Surely you have committed a wicked
crime."
"Did I not tell you," he replied, "that you would not bear with
me?"
Moses said: "If ever I question you again, abandon me; for then I
should deserve it."
They travelled on until they came to a certain city. They asked
the people for some food, but the people declined to receive them
as their guests. There they found a wall on the point of falling down.
The other raised it up, and Moses said: "Had you wished, you could
have demanded payment for your labours."
"Now the time has arrived when we must part," said the other.
"But first I will explain to you those acts of mine which you could
not bear with in patience.
"Know that the ship belonged to some poor fishermen. I damaged
it because in their rear was a king who was taking every ship by
force.
"As for the youth, his parents both are true believers, and we
feared lest he should plague them with his wickedness and unbelief.
It was our wish that their Lord should grant them another in his
place, a son more righteous and more filial.
"As for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the city whose
father was an honest man. Beneath it their treasure is buried. Your
Lord decreed in His mercy that they should dig out their treasure
when they grew to manhood. What I did was not done by caprice.
That is the meaning of the things you could not bear with in pa
tience."
a 44
This story is an amplification and elucidation of the legend
of the seven sleepers and the problem of rebirth. Moses is the
man who seeks, the man on the "quest." On this pilgrimage he
is accompanied by his "shadow," the "servant" or "lower" man
(pneumatikos and sarkikos in two individuals). Joshua is the son
of Nun, which is a name for "fish," 9 suggesting that Joshua had
his origin in the depths of the waters, in the darkness of the
B Vollers, "Chidher," Archiv jHr Religionswissenschaft, XII, p. 241. All quotations
from the commentaries are extracted from this article.
138
CONCERNING REBIRTH
shadow-world. The critical place is reached "where the two seas
meet," which is interpreted as the isthmus of Suez, where the
Western and the Eastern seas come close together. In other
words, it is that "place of the middle" which we have already met
in the symbolic preamble, but whose significance was not recog
nized at first by the man and his shadow. They had "forgotten
their fish," the humble source of nourishment. The fish refers
to Nun, the father of the shadow, of the carnal man, who comes
from the dark world of the Creator. For the fish came alive
again and leapt out of the basket in order to find its way back to
its homeland, the sea. In other words, the animal ancestor and
creator of life separates himself from the conscious man, an
event which amounts to loss of the instinctive psyche. This proc
ess is a symptom of dissociation well known in the psychopathology of the neuroses; it is always connected with one-sidedness of the conscious attitude. In view of the fact, however, that
neurotic phenomena are nothing but exaggerations of normal
processes, it is not to be wondered at that very similar phe
nomena can also be found within the scope of the normal. It is
a question of that well-known "loss of soul" among primitives,
as described above in the section on diminution of the personal
ity; in scientific language, an abaissement du niveau mental.
8 45
Moses and his servant soon notice what has happened. Moses
had sat down, "worn out" and hungry. Evidently he had a feel
ing of insufficiency, for which a physiological explanation is
given. Fatigue is one of the most regular symptoms of loss of
energy or libido. The entire process represents something very
typical, namely the failure to recognize a moment of crucial im
portance, a motif which we encounter in a great variety of
mythical forms. Moses realizes that he has unconsciously found
the source of life and then lost it again, which we might well
regard as a remarkable intuition. The fish they had intended to
eat is a content of the unconscious, by which the connection
with the origin is re-established. He is the reborn one, who has
awakened to new life. This came to pass, as the commentaries
say, through the contact with the water of life: by slipping back
into the sea, the fish once more becomes a content of the uncon
scious, and its offspring are distinguished by having only one
eye and half a head. 10
IO Ibid., p. 253.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
24 6
The alchemists, too, speak of a strange fish in the sea, the
"round fish lacking bones and skin," 11 which symbolizes the
"round element," the germ of the "animate stone," of the ftlius
philosophorum. The water of life has its parallel in the aqua
permanens of alchemy. This water is extolled as "vivifying," be
sides which it has the property of dissolving all solids and coag
ulating all liquids. The Koran commentaries state that, on the
spot where the fish disappeared, the sea was turned to solid
ground, whereon the tracks of the fish could still be seen. 12 On
the island thus formed Khidr was sitting, in the place of the
middle. A mystical interpretation says that he was sitting "on a
throne consisting of light, between the upper and the lower
sea," 13 again in the middle position. The appearance of Khidr
seems to be mysteriously connected with the disappearance of
the fish. It looks almost as if he himself had been the fish. This
conjecture is supported by the fact that the commentaries rele
gate the source of life to the "place of darkness." 14 The depths
of the sea are dark (mare tenebrositatis). The darkness has its
parallel in the alchemical nigredo, which occurs after the coninnctio, when the female takes the male into herself. 15 From the
nigredo issues the Stone, the symbol of the immortal self; more
over, its first appearance is likened to "fish eyes." 18
11 Cl. A i o n , pats. 195IF.
i2\'ollers, p. 244.
13 Ibid., p. 260.
14 Ibid,, p. 258.
15 Cf. the myth in the "Visio Arislei," especially the version in the R o s a r i u m
philosophorum (Art. aurif., II, p. 246), likewise the drowning of the sun in the
Mercurial Fountain and the green lion who devours the sun (Art. aurif., II, pp.
515, 366). Cf. "The Psychology of the Transference," pars. 467!!.
16 The white stone appears on the edge of the vessel, "like Oriental gems, like
fish's eyes." Cf. Joannes Isaacus Hollandus, Opera mirteralia (1600), p. 370. Also
Lagneus, "Harmonica chemica." Theatrum chemicum, IV (1613), p. 870. The eyes
appear at the end of the nigredo and with the beginning of the albedo. Another
simile of the same sort is the scintillae that appear in the dark substance. This idea
is traced back to Zacharias
4
: 10 (DV): "And they shall rejoice and see the tin
plummet in the hand of ZorobabeL These are the seven eyes of the Lord that run
to and fro through the whole earth." (Cf. Eirenaeus Orandus 1 in the introduction
to Nicholas Flamel's Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures, 1 6 2 4 . fol. A 5 . )
They are the seven eyes of God on the comer-stone of the new temple (Zach. 3 : 9 ) .
The number seven suggests the seven stars, the planetary gods, who were depicted
by the alchemists in a cave under the earth (Mylius, Philosophia reformata,
1622,
p . 167). T h e y a r e t h e "sleepers e n c h a i n e d i n H a d e s " ( B e r t h e l o t , C o l l e c t i o n d e s
anciens alchimistes grecs, IV, xx, 8). This is an allusion to the legend of the seven
sleepers.
CONCERNING REBIRTH
Khidr may well be a symbol of the self. His qualities sig
nalize him as such: he is said to have been born in a cave, i.e., in
darkness. He is the "Long-lived One," who continually renews
himself, like Elijah. Like Osiris, he is dismembered at the end
of time, by Antichrist, but is able to restore himself to life. He
is analogous to the Second Adam, with whom the reanimated
fish is identified; 17 he is a counsellor, a Paraclete, "Brother
Khidr." Anyway Moses accepts him as a higher consciousness
and looks up to him for instruction. Then follow those incom
prehensible deeds which show how ego-consciousness reacts
to the superior guidance of the self through the twists and turns
of fate. To the initiate who is capable of transformation it is a
comforting tale; to the obedient believer, an exhortation not to
murmur against Allah's incomprehensible omnipotence. Khidr
symbolizes not only the higher wisdom but also a way of acting
which is in accord with this wisdom and transcends reason.
H8
Anyone hearing such a mystery tale will recognize himself in
the questing Moses and the forgetful Joshua, and the tale shows
him how the immortality-bringing rebirth comes about. Charac
teristically, it is neither Moses nor Joshua who is transformed,
but the forgotten fish. Where the fish disappears, there is the
birthplace of Khidr. The immortal being issues from something
humble and forgotten, indeed, from a wholly improbable
source. This is the familiar motif of the hero's birth and need
not be documented here. 18 Anyone who knows the Bible will
think of Isaiah 53:2¾., where the "servant of God" is described,
and of the gospel stories of the Nativity. The nourishing charac
ter of the transformative substance or deity is borne out by
numerous cult-legends: Christ is the bread, Osiris the wheat,
247
it Vollers, p. 254. This may possibly be due to Christian influence: one thinks of
the fish meals of the early Christians and of fish symbolism in general. Vollers him
self stresses the analogy between Christ and Khidr. Concerning the fish symbolism,
s e e Ai o n .
18 Further examples in S y m b o l s o f T r a n s f o r m a t i o n , Part II. I could give many
more from alchemy, but shall content myself with the old verse:
"This is the stone, poor and of little price.
Spurned by the fool, but honoured by the wise.
( R o s . p h i l , , in A r t . a u r i f . , II, p. 210.) The "lapis exilis" may be a connecting-link
with the "lapsit exillis," the grail of Wolfram von Eschenbach.
141
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Mondamin the maize,19 etc. These symbols coincide with a psy
chic fact which obviously, from the point of view of conscious
ness, has the significance merely of something to be assimilated,
but whose real nature is overlooked. The fish symbol shows im
mediately what this is: it is the "nourishing" influence of uncon
scious contents, which maintain the vitality of consciousness by
a continual influx of energy; for consciousness does not produce
its energy by itself. What is capable of transformation is just this
root of consciousness, which—inconspicuous and almost invis
ible (i.e., unconscious) though it is—provides consciousness with
all its energy. Since the unconscious gives us the feeling that it is
something alien, a non-ego, it is quite natural that it should be
symbolized by an alien figure. Thus, on the one hand, it is the
most insignificant of things, while on the other, so far as it po
tentially contains that "round" wholeness which consciousness
lacks, it is the most significant of all. This "round" thing is the
great treasure that lies hidden in the cave of the unconscious,
and its personification is this personal being who represents the
higher unity of conscious and unconscious. It is a figure com
parable to Hiranyagarbha, Purusha, Atman, and the mystic
Buddha. For this reason I have elected to call it the "self," by
which I understand a psychic totality and at the same time a
centre, neither of which coincides with the ego but includes it,
just as a larger circle encloses a smaller one.
249
The intuition of immortality which makes itself felt during
the transformation is connected with the peculiar nature of the
unconscious. It is, in a sense, non-spatial and non-temporal.
The empirical proof of this is the occurrence of so-called tele
pathic phenomena, which are still denied by hypersceptical
critics, although in reality they are much more common than is
generally supposed.20 The feeling of immortality, it seems to
me, has its origin in a peculiar feeling of extension in space and
time, and I am inclined to regard the deification rites in the
mysteries as a projection of this same psychic phenomenon.
s5°
The character of the self as a personality comes out very
19 [The Ojibway legend of Mondamin was recorded by H. R. Schoolcraft and be
came a source for Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Cf. M. L. Williams, School
craft's Indian Legends, pp. 58FF.—EDITORS.]
20Rhine, New Frontiers of the Mind. [Cf. also "Synchronicity: An Acausal Con
necting Principle."—EDITORS.]
CONCERNING REBIRTH
plainly in the Khidr legend. This feature is most strikingly ex
pressed in the non-Koranic stories about Khidr, of which VolIers gives some telling examples. During my trip through Kenya,
the headman of our safari was a Somali who had been brought
up in the Sufi faith. To him Khidr was in every way a livinoperson, and he assured me that I might at any time meet Khidr,
because I was, as he put it, a M'tu-ya-kitabu, 21 a 'man of the
Book,' meaning the Koran. He had gathered from our talks
that I knew the Koran better than he did himself (which was,
by the way, not saying a great deal). For this reason he regarded
me as "islamu." He told me I might meet Khidr in the street
in the shape of a man, or he might appear to me during the
night as a pure white light, or—he smilingly picked a blade of
grass—the Verdant One might even look like that. He said he
himself had once been comforted and helped by Khidr, when he
could not find a job after the war and was suffering want. One
night, while he slept, he dreamt he saw a bright white light near
the door and he knew it was Khidr. Quickly leaping to his feet
(in the dream), he reverentially saluted him with the words
salem aleikum, 'peace be with you,' and then he knew that his
wish would be fulfilled. He added that a few days later he was
offered the post as headman of a safari by a firm of outfitters in
Nairobi.
«5'
This shows that, even in our own day, Khidr still lives on in
the religion of the people, as friend, adviser, comforter, and
teacher of revealed wisdom. The position assigned to him by
dogma was, according to my Somali, that of maleika kwanza-yamungu, 'First Angel of God'—a sort of "Angel of the Face," an
angelos in the true sense of the word, a messenger.
2 52
Khidr's character as a friend explains the subsequent part of
the Eighteenth Sura, which reads as follows:
They will ask you about Dhulqarnein. Say: "I will give you an
account of him.
"We made him mighty in the land and gave him means to achieve
all things. He journeyed on a certain road until he reached the West
and saw the sun setting in a pool of black mud. Hard by he found a
certain people.
21 He spoke in Kiswahili, the lingua franca of East Africa. It contains many words
borrowed from Arabic, as shown by the above example: kitab = book.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
" 'Dhulqarnein,' We said, 'you must either punish them or show
them kindness.'
"He replied: 'The wicked We shall surely punish. Then they shall
return to their Lord and be sternly punished by Him. As for those
that have faith and do good works, we shall bestow on them a rich
reward and deal indulgently with them,'
"He then journeyed along another road until he reached the East
and saw the sun rising upon a people whom We had utterly ex
posed to its flaming rays. So he did; and We had full knowledge of
all the forces at his command.
"Then he followed yet another route until he came between the
Two Mountains and found a people who could barely understand a
word. 'Dhulqarnein,' they said, 'Gog and Magog are ravaging this
land. Build us a rampart against them and we will pay you tribute.'
"He replied: 'The power which my Lord has given me is better
than any tribute. Lend me a force of labourers, and I will raise a
rampart between you and them. Come, bring me blocks of iron.'
"He dammed up the valley between the Two Mountains, and
said: 'Ply your bellows.' And when the iron blocks were red with
heat, he said: 'Bring me molten brass to pour on them.'
"Gog and Magog could not scale it, nor could they dig their way
through it. He said: 'This is a blessing from my Lord. But when my
Lord's promise is fulfilled, He will level it to dust. The promise of
my Lord is true.' "
On that day We will let them come in tumultuous throngs. The
Trumpet shall be sounded and We will gather them all together.
On that day Hell shall be laid bare before the unbelievers, who
have turned a blind eye to My admonition and a deaf ear to My
warning.
2 53
We see here another instance of that lack of coherence which
is not uncommon in the Koran. How are we to account for this
apparently abrupt transition to Dhulqarnein, the Two-horned
One, that is to say, Alexander the Great? Apart from the un
heard-of anachronism (Mohammed's chronology in general
leaves much to be desired), one does not quite understand why
Alexander is brought in here at all. But it has to be borne in
mind that Khidr and Dhulqarnein are the great pair of friends,
altogether comparable to the Dioscuri, as Vollers rightly empha
sizes. The psychological connection may therefore be presumed
to be as follows: Moses has had a profoundly moving experience
of the self, which brought unconscious processes before his eyes
144
CONCLRNING REBIRTH
with overwhelming clarity. Afterwards, when he comes to his
people, the Jews, who are counted among the infidels, and
wants to tell them about his experience, he prefers to use the
form of a mystery legend. Instead of speaking about himself, he
speaks about the Two-horned One. Since Moses himself is also
"horned," the substitution of Dhulqarnein appears plausible.
Then he has to relate the history of this friendship and describe
how Khidr helped his friend. Dhulqarnein makes his way to
the setting of the sun and then to its rising. That is, he describes
the way of the renewal of the sun, through death and darkness
to a new resurrection. All this again indicates that it is Khidr
who not only stands by man in his bodily needs but also helps
him to attain rebirth. 22 The Koran, it is true, makes no distinc
tion in this narrative between Allah, who is speaking in the
first person plural, and Khidr. But it is clear that this section is
simply a continuation of the helpful actions described previ
ously, from which it is evident that Khidr is a symbolization or
"incarnation" of Allah. The friendship between Khidr and
Alexander plays an especially prominent part in the com
mentaries, as does also the connection with the prophet Elijah.
Vollers does not hesitate to extend the comparison to that other
pair of friends, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. 23
2 54
To sum up, then: Moses has to recount the deeds of the two
friends to his people in the manner of an impersonal mystery
legend. Psychologically this means that the transformation has
to be described or felt as happening to the "other." Although
it is Moses himself who, in his experience with Khidr, stands
in Dhulqarnein's place, he has to name the latter instead of
himself in telling the story. This can hardly be accidental, for
the great psychic danger which is always connected with indi
viduation, or the development of the self, lies in the identifica
tion of ego-consciousness with the self. This produces an infla
tion which threatens consciousness with dissolution. All the
more primitive or older cultures show a fine sense for the
"perils of the soul" and for the dangerousness and general
22 There are similar indications in the Jewish tales about Alexander. Cf. Bin
Gorion, Der Born Judas, III, p. 133, for the legend of the "water of life, which is
related to the 18th Sura.
23 [For a fuller discussion of these relationships, see Symbols of Transformation,
pars. A8?ff.—EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
unreliability of the gods. That is, they have not yet lost their
psychic instinct for the barely perceptible and yet vital processes
going on in the background, which can hardly be said of our
modern culture. To be sure, we have before our eyes as a warn
ing just such a pair of friends distorted by inflation—Nietzsche
and Zarathustra—but the warning has not been heeded. And
what are we to make of Faust and Mephistopheles? The Faustian hybris is already the first step towards madness. The fact
that the unimpressive beginning of the transformation in Faust
is a dog and not an edible fish, and that the transformed figure
is the devil and not a wise friend, "endowed with Our grace and
Our wisdom," might, I am inclined to think, offer a key to our
understanding of the highly enigmatic Germanic soul.
255
Without entering into other details of the text, I would like
to draw attention to one more point: the building of the ram
part against Gog and Magog (also known as Yajuj and Majuj).
This motif is a repetition of Khidr's last deed in the previous
episode, the rebuilding of the town wall. But this time the wall
is to be a strong defence against Gog and Magog. The passage
may possibly refer to Revelation 20:ηί. (AV):
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed
out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are
in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together for battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the
camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.
2
56
Here Dhulqarnein takes over the role of Khidr and builds
an unscalable rampart for the people living "between Two
Mountains." This is obviously the same place in the middle
which is to be protected against Gog and Magog, the featureless,
hostile masses. Psychologically, it is again a question of the self,
enthroned in the place of the middle, and referred to in Revela
tion as the beloved city (Jerusalem, the centre of the earth). The
self is the hero, threatened already at birth by envious collective
forces; the jewel that is coveted by all and arouses jealous strife;
and finally the god who is dismembered by the old, evil power
of darkness. In its psychological meaning, individuation is an
opus contra naturam, which creates a horror vacui in the collec
tive layer and is only too likely to collapse under the impact of
146
CONCERNING REBIRTH
the collective forces of the psyche. The mystery legend of the
two helpful friends promises protection 24 to him who has
found the jewel on his quest. But there will come a time when,
in accordance with Allah's providence, even the iron rampart
will fall to pieces, namely, on the day when the world comes to
an end, or psychologically speaking, when individual conscious
ness is extinguished in the waters of darkness, that is to say
when a subjective end of the world is experienced. By this is
meant the moment when consciousness sinks back into the dark
ness from which it originally emerged, like Khidr's island: the
moment of death.
257
The legend then continues along eschatological lines: on
that day (the day of the Last Judgment) the light returns to eter
nal light and the darkness to eternal darkness. The opposites are
separated and a timeless state of permanence sets in, which, be
cause of the absolute separation of opposites, is nevertheless one
of supreme tension and therefore corresponds to the improbable
initial state. This is in contrast to the view which sees the end
as a complexio oppositorum.
258
With this prospect of eternity, Paradise, and Hell the Eight
eenth Sura comes to an end. In spite of its apparently discon
nected and allusive character, it gives an almost perfect pic
ture of a psychic transformation or rebirth which today, with
our greater psychological insight, we would recognize as an in
dividuation process. Because of the great age of the legend and
the Islamic prophet's primitive cast of mind, the process takes
place entirely outside the sphere of consciousness and is pro
jected in the form of a mystery legend of a friend or a pair of
friends and the deeds they perform. That is why it is all so allu
sive and lacking in logical sequence. Nevertheless, the legend
expresses the obscure archetype of transformation so admirably
that the passionate religious eros of the Arab finds it completely
satisfying. It is for this reason that the figure of Khidr plays such
an important part in Islamic mysticism.
24 Just
as the Dioscuri come to the aid of those who are in danger at sea.
IV
THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
OF THE KORE
[These two studies were first published, under the respective titles "Zur PsychoIogie des Kind-Archetypus" and "Zum psychologischen Aspckt dcr Kore-Figur," in
two small volumes: Das gottliche Kind (Albae Vigiliae VI/VII, Amsterdam and
Leipzig, 1940) and Das gottliche Mddchen (same series, VIII/IX, 1941). Each vol
ume contained a companion essay by Κ. Kerdnyi. The two volumes were united,
with additional material by Professor Kerinyi 1 under the title Einfuhrung in das
Wesen der Mythologie (Amsterdam, Leipzig, and Zurich, 1941). This combined
volume was translated by R. F. C. Hull as Essays on a Science of Mythology (Bollingen Series XXII; New York, 1949), of which the London (1950) edition was
titled Introduction to a Science of Mythology; the text of the two studies here
presented is a revision of that of 1949/50. The complete German volume was
published in a new edition in 1951. In 1963, the English version appeared in
Harper Torchbooks (New York; paperback), with the present Jung translation
and a revised Kertoyi translation— DITORS.]
E
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
I.
»59
INTRODUCTION
The author of the companion essay 1 on the mythology of
the "child" or the child god has asked me for a psychological
commentary on the subject of his investigations. I am glad to
accede to his request, although the undertaking seems to me no
small venture in view of the great significance of the child motif
in mythology. Kerenyi himself has enlarged upon the occur
rence of this motif in Greece and Rome, with parallels drawn
from Indian, Finnish, 'and other sources, thus indicating that
the presentation of the theme would allow of yet further exten
sions. Though a comprehensive description would contribute
nothing decisive in principle, it would nevertheless produce an
overwhelming impression of the world-wide incidence and fre
quency of the motif. The customary treatment of mythological
motifs so far in separate departments of science, such as phi
lology, ethnology, the history of civilization, and comparative
religion, was not exactly a help to us in recognizing their uni
versality; and the psychological problems raised by this univer
sality could easily be shelved by hypotheses of migration. Con
sequently Adolf Bastian's 2 ideas met with little success in their
day. Even then there was sufficient empirical material available
to permit far-reaching psychological conclusions, but the neces
sary premises were lacking. Although the psychological knowl
edge of that time included myth-formation in its provincewitness Wundt's Volkerpsychologie—it was not in a position to
demonstrate this same process as a living function actually pres
ent in the psyche of civilized man, any more than it could under
stand mythological motifs as structural elements of the psyche.
True to its history, when psychology was metaphysics first of
1 Kerdnyi, "The Primordial Child in Primordial Times."
^Der Menseh in der Geschichte (i860).
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
all, then the study of the senses and their functions, and then of
the conscious mind and its functions, psychology identified its
proper subject with the conscious psyche and its contents and
thus completely overlooked the existence of a nonconscious
psyche. Although various philosophers, among them Leibniz,
Kant, and Schelling, had already pointed very clearly to the
problem of the dark side of the psyche, it was a physician who
felt impelled, from his scientific and medical experience, to
point to the unconscious as the essential basis of the psyche.
This was C. G. Carus, 3 the authority whom Eduard von Hartmann followed. In recent times it was, once again, medical psy
chology that approached the problem of the unconscious with
out philosophical preconceptions. It became clear from many
separate investigations that the psychopathology of the neuroses
and of many psychoses cannot dispense with the hypothesis of a
dark side of the psyche, i.e., the unconscious. It is the same with
the psychology of dreams, which is really the terra intermedia
between normal and pathological psychology. In the dream, as
in the products of psychoses, there are numberless interconnec
tions to which one can find parallels only in mythological asso
ciations of ideas (or perhaps in certain poetic creations which
are often characterized by a borrowing, not always conscious,
from myths). Had thorough investigation shown that in the
majority of such cases it was simply a matter of forgotten knowl
edge, the physician would not have gone to the trouble of mak
ing extensive researches into individual and collective parallels.
But, in point of fact, typical mythologems were observed among
individuals to whom all knowledge of this kind was absolutely
out of the question, and where indirect derivation from re
ligious ideas that might have been known to them, or from
popular figures of speech, was impossible. 4 Such conclusions
forced us to assume that we must be dealing with "autochtho
nous" revivals independent of all tradition, and, consequently,
that "myth-forming" structural elements must be present in the
unconscious psyche. 5
3 Psyche ( 1 8 4 6 ) .
4 A working example in "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious," pars. 105^.,
above.
5 Freud, in his Interpretation of Dreams (p. 2 6 1 ) , paralleled certain aspects o f
infantile psychology with the Oedipus legend and observed that its "universal
152
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
These products are never (or at least very seldom) myths
with a definite form, but rather mythological components
which, because of their typical nature, we can call "motifs,"
"primordial images," types or-as I have named them—arche
types. The child archetype is an excellent example. Today we
can hazard the formula that the archetypes appear in myths and
fairytales just as they do in dreams and in the products of psy
chotic fantasy. The medium in which they are embedded is, in
the former case, an ordered and for the most part immediately
understandable context, but in the latter case a generally unin
telligible, irrational, not to say delirious sequence of images
which nonetheless does not lack a certain hidden coherence. In
the individual, the archetypes appear as involuntary manifesta
tions of unconscious processes whose existence and meaning can
only be inferred, whereas the myth deals with traditional forms
of incalculable age. They hark back to a prehistoric world
whose spiritual preconceptions and general conditions we can
still observe today among existing primitives. Myths on this
level are as a rule tribal history handed down from generation
to generation by word of mouth. Primitive mentality differs
from the civilized chiefly in that the conscious mind is far less
developed in scope and intensity. Functions such as thinking,
willing, etc. are not yet differentiated; they are pre-conscious,
and in the case of thinking, for instance, this shows itself in
the circumstance that the primitive does not think consciously,
but that thoughts appear. The primitive cannot assert that he
thinks; it is rather that "something thinks in him." The sponta
neity of the act of thinking does not lie, causally, in his con
scious mind, but in his unconscious. Moreover, he is incapable
of any conscious effort of will; he must put himself beforehand
validity" was to be explained in terms of the same infantile premise. The
real working out of mythological material was then taken up by my pupils (A.
Maeder1 "Essai d'interprdtation de quelques reves," 1907, and "Die Symbolik in den
Legenden1 Marchen, Gebrauchen, und Traumen," 1908; F. Riklin, "Ober Gefangnispsychosen," 1907, and Wishfulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales, orig. 1908);
and by K. Abraham, Dreams and Myths, orig. 1909. They were succeeded by Otto
Rank of the Viennese school (The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, orig. 1922). In
the Psychology of the Unconscious (orig. 1911; revised and expanded as Symbols
of Transformation), I presented a somewhat more comprehensive examination of
psychic and mythological parallels. Cf. also my essay in this volume, "Concerning
the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
into the "mood of willing," or let himself be put—hence his
rites d'entree et de sortie. His consciousness is menaced by an
almighty unconscious: hence his fear of magical influences
which may cross his path at any moment; and for this reason,
too, he is surrounded by unknown forces and must adjust him
self to them as best he can. Owing to the chronic twilight state
of his consciousness, it is often next to impossible to find out
whether he merely dreamed something or whether he really ex
perienced it. The spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious
and its archetypes intrudes everywhere into his conscious mind,
and the mythical world of his ancestors—for instance, the alchera
or bugari of the Australian aborigines—is a reality equal if not
superior to the material world. 6 It is not the world as we know it
that speaks out of his unconscious, but the unknown world of
the psyche, of which we know that it mirrors our empirical
world only in part, and that, for the other part, it moulds this
empirical world in accordance with its own psychic assump
tions. The archetype does not proceed from physical facts, but
describes how the psyche experiences the physical fact, and in
so doing the psyche often behaves so autocratically that it denies
tangible reality or makes statements that fly in the face of it.
The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experi
ences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious
psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic hap
penings, and anything but allegories of physical processes. 7 Such
allegories would be an idle amusement for an unscientific intel
lect. Myths, on the contrary, have a vital meaning. Not merely
do they represent, they are the psychic life of the primitive tribe,
which immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its
mythological heritage, like a man who has lost his soul. A tribe's
mythology is its living religion, whose loss is always and every
where, even among the civilized, a moral catastrophe. But re
ligion is a vital link with psychic processes independent of and
beyond consciousness, in the dark hinterland of the psyche.
Many of these unconscious processes may be indirectly occa
sioned by consciousness, but never by conscious choice. Others
appear to arise spontaneously, that is to say, from no discernible
or demonstrable conscious cause,
β This fact is well known, and the relevant ethnological literature is too extensive
to be mentioned here.
τ Cf. "The Structure of the Psyche," pars. 3306.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
262
Modern psychology treats the products of unconscious fan
tasy-activity as self-portraits of what is going on in the uncon
scious, or as statements of the unconscious psyche about itself.
They fall into two categories. First, fantasies (including dreams)
of a personal character, which go back unquestionably to per
sonal experiences, things forgotten or repressed, and can thus be
completely explained by individual anamnesis. Second, fantasies
(including dreams) of an impersonal character, which cannot
be reduced to experiences in the individual's past, and thus can
not be explained as something individually acquired. These
fantasy-images undoubtedly have their closest analogues in
mythological types. We must therefore assume that they corre
spond to certain collective (and not personal) structural elements
of the human psyche in general, and, like the morphological
elements of the human body, are inherited,, Although tradition
and transmission by migration certainly play a part, there are,
as we have said, very many cases that cannot be accounted for
in this way and drive us to the hypothesis of "autochthonous
revival." These cases are so numerous that we are obliged to as
sume the existence of a collective psychic substratum. I have
called this the collective unconscious.
2 ®3
The products of this second category resemble the types of
structures to be met with in myth and fairytale so much that
we must regard them as related. It is therefore wholly within
the realm of possibility that both, the mythological types as well
as the individual types, arise under quite similar conditions. As
already mentioned, the fantasy-products of the second category
(as also those of the first) arise in a state of reduced intensity of
consciousness (in dreams, delirium, reveries, visions, etc.). In all
these states the check put upon unconscious contents by the con
centration of the conscious mind ceases, so that the hitherto un
conscious material streams, as though from opened side-sluices,
into the field of consciousness. This mode of origination is the
general rule. 8
ϊ6 4
Reduced intensity of consciousness and absence of concen
tration and attention, Janet's abaissement du niveau mental,
correspond pretty exactly to the primitive state of consciousness
8 Except for certain cases of spontaneous vision, automatismes teUologiques
(Floumoy), and the processes in the method of "active imagination" which I have
described [e.g., in "The Transcendent Function" and Mysterium Coniunctionis,
pars. 706, 753f.—EDITORS].
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
in which, we must suppose, myths were originally formed. It is
therefore exceedingly probable that the mythological arche
types, too, made their appearance in much the same manner as
the manifestations of archetypal structures among individuals
today.
265
The methodological principle in accordance with which psy
chology treats the products of the unconscious is this: Contents
of an archetypal character are manifestations of processes in the
collective unconscious. Hence they do not refer to anything that
is or has been conscious, but to something essentially uncon
scious. In the last analysis, therefore, it is impossible to say what
they refer to. Every interpretation necessarily remains an "as-if."
The ultimate core of meaning may be circumscribed, but not
described. Even so, the bare circumscription denotes an essen
tial step forward in our knowledge of the pre-conscious struc
ture of the psyche, which was already in existence when there
was as yet no unity of personality (even today the primitive is
not securely possessed of it) and no consciousness at all. We can
also observe this pre-conscious state in early childhood, and as
a matter of fact it is the dreams of this early period that not in
frequently bring extremely remarkable archetypal contents to
light. 0
266
If, then, we proceed in accordance with the above principle,
there is no longer any question whether a myth refers to the
sun or the moon, the father or the mother, sexuality or fire or
water; all it does is to circumscribe and give an approximate
description of an unconscious core of meaning. The ultimate
meaning of this nucleus xvas never conscious and never will be.
It was, and still is, only interpreted, and every interpretation
that comes anywhere near the hidden sense (or, from the point
of view of scientific intellect, nonsense, which comes to the same
thing) has always, right from the beginning, laid claim not only
to absolute truth and validity but to instant reverence and re
ligious devotion. Archetypes were, and still are, living psychic
forces that demand to be taken seriously, and they have a strange
way of making sure of their effect. Always they were the bringers
9 The relevant material can be found in the unpublished reports of the seminars
I gave at the Federal Polytechnic Institute (ETH) in Zurich in 1936-39, and in
Michael Fordham's book T h e Life 0 } Childhood.
156
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
of protection and salvation, and their violation has as its conse
quence the "perils of the soul" known to us from the psychology
of primitives. Moreover, they are the unfailing causes of neu
rotic and even psychotic disorders, behaving exactly like neg
lected or maltreated physical organs or organic functional sys
tems.
267
An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in
metaphors. If such a content should speak of the sun and iden
tify with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the
dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man,
it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third
thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these
similes, yet—to the perpetual vexation of the intellect—remains
unknown and not to be fitted into a formula. For this reason
the scientific intellect is always inclined to put on airs of en
lightenment in the hope of banishing the spectre once and for
all. Whether its endeavours were called euhemerism, or Chris
tian apologetics, or Enlightenment in the narrow sense, or Pos
itivism, there was always a myth hiding behind it, in new and
disconcerting garb, which then, following the ancient and ven
erable pattern, gave itself out as ultimate truth. In reality we
can never legitimately cut loose from our archetypal founda
tions unless we are prepared to pay the price of a neurosis, any
more than we can rid ourselves of our body and its organs with
out committing suicide. If we cannot deny the archetypes or
otherwise neutralize them, we are confronted, at every new
stage in the differentiation of consciousness to which civiliza
tion attains, with the task of finding a new interpretation ap
propriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past
that still exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens
to slip away from it. If this link-up does not take place, a kind of
rootless consciousness comes into being no longer oriented to
the past, a consciousness which succumbs helplessly to all man
ner of suggestions and, in practice, is susceptible to psychic epi
demics. With the loss of the past, now become "insignificant,"
devalued, and incapable of revaluation, the saviour is lost too,
for the saviour is either the insignificant thing itself or else
arises out of it. Over and over again in the "metamorphosis of
the gods" he rises up as the prophet or first-born of a new
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
generation and appears unexpectedly in the unlikeliest places
(sprung from a stone, tree, furrow, water, etc.) and in ambiguous
form (Tom Thumb, dwarf, child, animal, and so on).
268
This archetype of the "child god" is extremely widespread
and intimately bound up with all the other mythological aspects
of the child motif. It is hardly necessary to allude to the still
living "Christ-child," who, in the legend of Saint Christopher,
also has the typical feature of being "smaller than small and big
ger than big." In folklore the child motif appears in the guise of
the divarf or the elf as personifications of the hidden forces of
nature. To this sphere also belongs the little metal man of late
antiquity, the άνθρωπάρων, who, till far into the Middle Ages,
on the one hand inhabited the mine-shafts, 11 and on the other
represented the alchemical metals, 12 above all Mercurius reborn
in perfect form (as the hermaphrodite, ftlius sapientiae, or infans noster). 13 Thanks to the religious interpretation of the
"child," a fair amount of evidence has come down to us from
the Middle Ages showing that the "child" was not merely a tra
ditional figure, but a vision spontaneously experienced (as a socalled "irruption of the unconscious"). I would mention Meister
Eckhart's vision of the "naked boy" and the dream of Brother
Eustachius. 14 Interesting accounts of these spontaneous expe
riences are also to be found in English ghost-stories, where we
read of the vision of a "Radiant Boy" said to have been seen
in a place where there are Roman remains. 15 This apparition
was supposed to be of evil omen. It almost looks as though we
were dealing with the figure of a puer aeternus who had become
inauspicious through "metamorphosis," or in other words had
shared the fate of the classical and the Germanic gods, who have
all become bugbears. The mystical character of the experience
is also confirmed in Part II of Goethe's Faust, where Faust him10
10 Berthelot, Alchimistes grecs, III, xxv.
11 Agricola, De animantibus subterraneis (1549); Kircher, Mundus subterraneus
(1678), VIII, 4.
12 Mylius, Philosophia reformata (1622).
13 "Allegoria super librum Turbae" in Artis auriferae, I (»572), p. 161.
14 Texte aus der deutschen Mysttk des 14. und 15, Jahrhunderts, ed. Spamer, pp.
143, 150.
is Ingram, The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain, pp. 43®.
158
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
self is transformed into a boy and admitted into the "choir of
blessed youths," this being the "larval stage" of Doctor Mari
an us. 16
269
In the strange tale called Das Reich ohne Raum j by Bruno
Goetz, a puer aeternus named Fo (= Buddha) appears with
whole troops of "unholy" boys of evil significance. (Contempo
rary parallels are better let alone.) I mention this instance only
to demonstrate the enduring vitality of the child archetype.
27°
The child motif not infrequently occurs in the field of psychopathology. The "imaginary" child is common among women
with mental disorders and is usually interpreted in a Christian
sense. Homunculi also appear, as in the famous Schreber case, 17
where they come in swarms and plague the sufferer. But the
clearest and most significant manifestation of the child motif in
the therapy of neuroses is in the maturation process of personality
induced by the analysis of the unconscious, which I have termed
the process of individuation. 18 Here we are confronted with preconscious processes which, in the form of more or less wellformed fantasies, gradually pass over into the conscious mind,
or become conscious as dreams, or, lastly, are made conscious
through the method of active imagination. 19 This material is
rich in archetypal motifs, among them frequently that of the
child. Often the child is formed after the Christian model; more
often, though, it develops from earlier, altogether non-Christian
levels—that is to say, out of chthonic animals such as crocodiles,
dragons, serpents, or monkeys. Sometimes the child appears in
the cup of a flower, or out of a golden egg, or as the centre of a
mandala. In dreams it often appears as the dreamer's son or
daughter or as a boy, youth, or young girl; occasionally it seems
to be of exotic origin, Indian or Chinese, with a dusky skin, or,
appearing more cosmically, surrounded by stars or with a starry
16 An old alchemical authority variously named Morienes, Morienus, Marianus
("De compositione alchemiae," Manget, Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, I, pp. 509ff.).
In view of the explicitly alchemical character of Faust, Part II, such a connection
would not be surprising.
17 Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.
is For a general presentation see infra, "Conscious, Unconscious, and Individua
tion." Special phenomena in the following text, also in Psychology and Alchemy,
Part II.
19 "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious," Part II, ch. 3 [also
"The Transcendent Function"—EDITORS].
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
coronet; or as the king's son or the witch's child with daemonic
attributes. Seen as a special instance of "the treasure hard to
attain" motif, 20 the child motif is extremely variable and as
sumes all manner of shapes, such as the jewel, the pearl, the
flower, the chalice, the golden egg, the quaternity, the golden
ball, and so on. It can be interchanged with these and similar
images almost without limit.
II. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
i. The Archetype as a Link with the Past
«7 1
As to the psychology of our theme I must point out that
every statement going beyond the purely phenomenal aspects of
an archetype lays itself open to the criticism we have expressed
above. Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that
an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the
best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful
translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, lan
guage itself is only an image.) The most we can do is to dream
the myth onwards and give it a modern dress. And whatever
explanation or interpretation does to it, we do to our own souls
as well, with corresponding results for our own well-being. The
archetype—let us never forget this—is a psychic organ present in
all of us. A bad explanation means a correspondingly bad atti
tude to this organ, which may thus be injured. But the ultimate
sufferer is the bad interpreter himself. Hence the "explanation"
should always be such that the functional significance of the
archetype remains unimpaired, so that an adequate and mean
ingful connection between the conscious mind and the arche
types is assured. For the archetype is an element of our psychic
structure and thus a vital and necessary component in our
psychic economy. It represents or personifies certain instinctive
data of the dark, primitive psyche, the real but invisible roots
of consciousness. Of what elementary importance the connection
with these roots is, we see from the preoccupation of the primi
tive mentality with certain "magic" factors, which are nothing
less than what we would call archetypes. This original form of
20 Symbols of Transformation, index, s.v.
l6o
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
religio ("linking back") is the essence, the working basis o£ all
religious life even today, and always will be, whatever future
form this life may take.
*72
There is no "rational" substitute for the archetype any more
than there is for the cerebellum or the kidneys. We can examine
the physical organs anatomically, histologically, and embryologically. This would correspond to an outline of archetypal
phenomenology and its presentation in terms of comparative
history. But we only arrive at the meaning of a physical organ
when we begin to ask teleological questions. Hence the query
arises: What is the biological purpose of the archetype? Just
as physiology answers such a question for the body, so it is
the business of psychology to answer it for the archetype.
273
Statements like "The child motif is a vestigial memory of
one's own childhood" and similar explanations merely beg the
question. But if, giving this proposition a slight twist, we were
to say, "The child motif is a picture of certain forgotten things
in our childhood," we are getting closer to the truth. Since,
however, the archetype is always an image belonging to the
whole human race and not merely to the individual, we might
put it better this way: "The child motif represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche." 21
2 74
We shall not go wrong if we take this statement for the time
being historically, on the analogy of certain psychological expe
riences which show that certain phases in an individual's life
can become autonomous, can personify themselves to the extent
21 It may not be superfluous to point out that lay prejudice is always inclined to
identify the child motif with the concrete experience "child," as though the real
child were the cause and pre-condition of the existence of the child motif. In
psychological reality, however, the empirical idea "child" is only the means (and
not the only one) by which to express a psychic fact that cannot be formulated
more exactly. Hence by the same token the mythological idea of the child is
emphatically not a copy of the empirical child but a symbol clearly recognizable
as such: it is a wonder-child, a divine child, begotten, born, and brought up in
quite extraordinary circumstances, and not—this is the point—a human child. Its
deeds are as miraculous or monstrous as its nature and physical constitution. Only
on account of these highly uncmpirical properties is it necessary to speak of a
"child motif" at all. Moreover, the mythological "child" has various forms: now
a god, giant, Tom Thumb, animal, etc., and this points to a causality that is any
thing but rational or concretely human. The same is true of the "father" and
"mother" archetypes which, mythologically speaking, are equally irrational
symbols.
l6l
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
that they result in a vision of oneself—for instance, one sees
oneself as a child. Visionary experiences of this kind, whether
they occur in dreams or in the waking state, are, as we know,
conditional on a dissociation having previously taken place be
tween past and present. Such dissociations come about because
of various incompatibilities; for instance, a man's present state
may have come into conflict with his childhood state, or he may
have violently sundered himself from his original character in
the interests of some arbitrary persona 22 more in keeping with
his ambitions. He has thus become unchildlike and artificial,
and has lost his roots. All this presents a favourable opportunity
for an equally vehement confrontation with the primary truth.
275
In view of the fact that men have not yet ceased to make
statements about the child god, we may perhaps extend the
individual analogy to the life of mankind and say in conclusion
that humanity, too, probably always comes into conflict with
its childhood conditions, that is, with its original, unconscious,
and instinctive state, and that the danger of the kind of con
flict which induces the vision of the "child" actually exists.
Religious observances, i.e., the retelling and ritual repetition of
the mythical event, consequently serve the purpose of bringing
the image of childhood, and everything connected with it, again
and again before the eyes of the conscious mind so that the link
with the original condition may not be broken.
2. The Function of the Archetype
2 76
The child motif represents not only something that existed
in the distant past but also something that exists now; that is
to say, it is not just a vestige but a system functioning in the
present whose purpose is to compensate or correct, in a mean
ingful manner, the inevitable one-sidednesses and extravagances
of the conscious mind. It is in the nature of the conscious mind
to concentrate on relatively few contents and to raise them to
the highest pitch of clarity. A necessary result and precondition
is the exclusion of other potential contents of consciousness. The
exclusion is bound to bring about a certain one-sidedness of
the conscious contents. Since the differentiated consciousness of
22 Psychological Types, Def. 48; and Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, index,
8.v. "persona."
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
civilized man has been granted an effective instrument for the
practical realization of its contents through the dynamics of his
will, there is all the more danger, the more he trains his will, of
his getting lost in one-sidedness and deviating further and
further from the laws and roots of his being. This means, on the
one hand, the possibility of human freedom, but on the other
it is a source of endless transgressions against one's instincts.
Accordingly, primitive man, being closer to his instincts, like
the animal, is characterized by fear of novelty and adherence to
tradition. To our way of thinking he is painfully backward,
whereas we exalt progress. But our progressiveness, though it
may result in a great many delightful wish-fulfilments, piles up
an equally gigantic Promethean debt which has to be paid off
from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes. For ages
man has dreamed of flying, and all we have got for it is saturation
bombing! We smile today at the Christian hope of a life beyond
the grave, and yet we often fall into chiliasms a hundred times
more ridiculous than the notion of a happy Hereafter. Our
differentiated consciousness is in continual danger of being up
rooted; hence it needs compensation through the still existing
state of childhood.
2 77
The symptoms of compensation are described, from the pro
gressive point of view, in scarcely flattering terms. Since, to the
superficial eye, it looks like a retarding operation, people speak
of inertia, backwardness, scepticism, fault-finding, conservatism,
timidity, pettiness, and so on. But inasmuch as man has, in high
degree, the capacity for cutting himself off from his own roots,
he may also be swept uncritically to catastrophe by his dangerous
one-sidedness. The retarding ideal is always more primitive,
more natural (in the good sense as in the bad), and more
"moral" in that it keeps faith with law and tradition. The pro
gressive ideal is always more abstract, more unnatural, and less
"moral" in that it demands disloyalty to tradition. Progress en
forced by will is always convulsive. Backwardness may be closer
to naturalness, but in its turn it is always menaced by painful
awakenings. The older view of things realized that progress is
only possible Deo concedente, thus proving itself conscious of
the opposites and repeating the age-old rites d'entree et de
sortie on a higher plane. The more differentiated consciousness
becomes, the greater the danger of severance from the root163
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
condition. Complete severance comes when the Deo concedente
is forgotten. Now it is an axiom of psychology that when a part
of the psyche is split off from consciousness it is only apparently
inactivated; in actual fact it brings about a possession of the
personality, with the result that the individual's aims are falsi
fied in the interests of the split-off part. If, then, the childhood
state of the collective psyche is repressed to the point of total
exclusion, the unconscious content overwhelms the conscious
aim and inhibits, falsifies, even destroys its realization. Viable
progress only comes from the co-operation of both.
3.
278
The Futurity of the Archetype
One of the essential features of the child motif is its futurity.
The child is potential future. Hence the occurrence of the child
motif in the psychology of the individual signifies as a rule an
anticipation of future developments, even though at first sight
it may seem like a retrospective configuration. Life is a flux, a
flowing into the future, and not a stoppage or a backwash. It is
therefore not surprising that so many of the mythological
saviours are child gods. This agrees exactly with our experience
of the psychology of the individual, which shows that the
"child" paves the way for a future change of personality. In the
individuation process, it anticipates the figure that comes from
the synthesis of conscious and unconscious elements in the per
sonality. It is therefore a symbol which unites the opposites; 23
a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole.
Because it has this meaning, the child motif is capable of the
numerous transformations mentioned above: it can be ex
pressed by roundness, the circle or sphere, or else by the quaternity as another form of wholeness. 24 I have called this
wholeness that transcends consciousness the "self." 25 The goal
of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self. From
another point of view the term "entelechy" might be pref
erable to "synthesis." There is an empirical reason why
"entelechy" is, in certain conditions, more fitting: the symbols
25
Psychological Types, ch. V, 3: "The Significance of the Uniting Symbol."
24 Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 327ft.; "Psychology and Religion," pars. io8fi.
25 Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pars. 39gff. [Cf. also Aion (Part II of this
volume), ch. 4.—EDITORS.]
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
of wholeness frequently occur at the beginning of the individua
tion process, indeed they can often be observed in the first
dreams of early infancy. This observation says much for the
a priori existence of potential wholeness,28 and on this account
the idea of entelechy instantly recommends itself. But in so far
as the individuation process occurs, empirically speaking, as a
synthesis, it looks, paradoxically enough, as if something al
ready existent were being put together. From this point of view,
the term "synthesis" is also applicable.
4.
«79
280
Unity and Plurality of the Child Motif
In the manifold phenomenology of the "child" we have to
distinguish between the unity and plurality of its respective
manifestations. Where, for instance, numerous homunculi,
dwarfs, boys, etc., appear, having no individual characteristics
at all, there is the probability of a dissociation. Such forms are
therefore found especially in schizophrenia, which is essentially
a fragmentation of personality. The many children then repre
sent the products of its dissolution. But if the plurality occurs
in normal people, then it is the representation of an as yet in
complete synthesis of personality. The personality (viz., the
"self") is still in the plural stage, i.e., an ego may be present,
but it cannot experience its wholeness within the framework of
its own personality, only within the community of the family,
tribe, or nation; it is still in the stage of unconscious identifi
cation with the plurality of the group. The Church takes due
account of this widespread condition in her doctrine of the
corpus mysticum, of which the individual is by nature a mem
ber.
If, however, the child motif appears in the form of a unity,
we are dealing with an unconscious and provisionally complete
synthesis of the personality, which in practice, like everything
unconscious, signifies no more than a possibility.
5.
*Sl
Child God and Child Hero
Sometimes the "child" looks more like a child god, some
times more like a young hero. Common to both types is the
2β Psychology and Alchemy, pars. g28ff.
165
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
miraculous birth and the adversities of early childhood—aban
donment and danger through persecution. The god is by nature
wholly supernatural; the hero's nature is human but raised to
the limit of the supernatural—he is "semi-divine." While the
god, especially in his close affinity with the symbolic animal,
personifies the collective unconscious which is not yet inte
grated into a human being, the hero's supernaturalness includes
human nature and thus represents a synthesis of the ("divine,"
i.e., not yet humanized) unconscious and human consciousness.
Consequently he signifies the potential anticipation of an in
dividuation process which is approaching wholeness.
282
P1or
reason the various "child"-fates may be regarded as
illustrating the kind of psychic events that occur in the entelechy
or genesis of the "self." The "miraculous birth" tries to depict
the way in which this genesis is experienced. Since it is a psychic
genesis, everything must happen non-empirically, e.g., by means
of a virgin birth, or by miraculous conception, or by birth from
unnatural organs. The motifs of "insignificance," exposure,
abandonment, danger, etc. try to show how precarious is the
psychic possibility of wholeness, that is, the enormous difficulties
to be met with in attaining this "highest good." They also
signify the powerlessness and helplessness of the life-urge which
subjects every growing thing to the law of maximum self-ful
filment, while at the same time the environmental influences
place all sorts of insuperable obstacles in the way of individua
tion. More especially the threat to one's inmost self from
dragons and serpents points to the danger of the newly ac
quired consciousness being swallowed up again by the in
stinctive psyche, the unconscious. The lower vertebrates have
from earliest times been favourite symbols of the collective
psychic substratum,27 which is localized anatomically in the sub
cortical centres, the cerebellum and the spinal cord. These
organs constitute the snake.28 Snake-dreams usually occur, there
fore, when the conscious mind is deviating from its instinctual
basis.
8
»S
The motif of "smaller than small yet bigger than big" com
plements the impotence of the child by means of its equally
27
Higher vertebrates symbolize mainly affects.
28 This interpretation of the snake is found as early as Hippolytus, Elenchos, IV,
49-51 (Legge trans., I, p. 117). Cf. also Leisegang, Die Gnosisj p. 146.
166
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
miraculous deeds. This paradox is the essence of the hero and
runs through his whole destiny like a red thread. He can cope
with the greatest perils, yet, in the end, something quite insig
nificant is his undoing: BaIdur perishes because of the mistle
toe, Maui because of the laughter of a little bird, Siegfried
because of his one vulnerable spot, Heracles because of his
wife's gift, others because of common treachery, and so on.
284
The hero's main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness:
it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of consciousness
over the unconscious. Day and light are synonyms for conscious
ness, night and dark for the unconscious. The coming of con
sciousness was probably the most tremendous experience of
primeval times, for with it a world came into being whose ex
istence no one had suspected before. "And God said: 'Let there
be light!' " is the projection of that immemorial experience of
the separation of the conscious from the unconscious. Even
among primitives today the possession of a soul is a precarious
thing, and the "loss of soul" a typical psychic malady which
drives primitive medicine to all sorts of psychotherapeutic
measures. Hence the "child" distinguishes itself by deeds which
point to the conquest of the dark.
III. THE SPECIAL PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
1. The Abandonment of the Child
a8 5
Abandonment, exposure, danger, etc. are all elaborations of
the "child's" insignificant beginnings and of its mysterious and
miraculous birth. This statement describes a certain psychic
experience of a creative nature, whose object is the emergence
of a new and as yet unknown content. In the psychology of the
individual there is always, at such moments, an agonizing situa
tion of conflict from which there seems to be no way out—at
least for the conscious mind, since as far as this is concerned,
iertium non datur. But out of this collision of opposites the
unconscious psyche always creates a third thing of an irrational
nature,29 which the conscious mind neither expects nor under
stands. It presents itself in a form that is neither a straight "yes"
Psychological Types, Def. 51.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
nor a straight "no," and is consequently rejected by both. For
the conscious mind knows nothing beyond the opposites and,
as a result, has no knowledge of the thing that unites them.
Since, however, the solution of the conflict through the union of
opposites is of vital importance, and is moreover the very thing
that the conscious mind is longing for, some inkling of the
creative act, and of the significance of it, nevertheless gets
through. From this comes the numinous character of the
"child." A meaningful but unknown content always has a secret
fascination for the conscious mind. The new configuration is
a nascent whole; it is on the way to wholeness, at least in so far
as it excels in "wholeness" the conscious mind when torn by
opposites and surpasses it in completeness. For this reason all
uniting symbols have a redemptive significance.
286
Out of this situation the "child" emerges as a symbolic con
tent, manifestly separated or even isolated from its background
(the mother), but sometimes including the mother in its perilous
situation, threatened on the one hand by the negative attitude
of the conscious mind and on the other by the horror vacui of
the unconscious, which is quite ready to swallow up all its
progeny, since it produces them only in play, and destruction is
an inescapable part of its play. Nothing in all the world wel
comes this new birth, although it is the most precious fruit of
Mother Nature herself, the most pregnant with the future,
signifying a higher stage of self-realization. That is why Nature,
the world of the instincts, takes the "child" under its wing: it
is nourished or protected by animals.
a8 7
"Child" means something evolving towards independence.
This it cannot do without detaching itself from its origins:
abandonment is therefore a necessary condition, not just a con
comitant symptom. The conflict is not to be overcome by the
conscious mind remaining caught between the opposites, and
for this very reason it needs a symbol to point out the necessity
of detaching itself from its origins. Because the symbol of the
"child" fascinates and grips the conscious mind, its redemptive
effect passes over into consciousness and brings about that sepa
ration from the conflict-situation which the conscious mind by
itself was unable to achieve. The symbol anticipates a nascent
state of consciousness. So long as this is not actually in being,
the "child" remains a mythological projection which requires
168
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
religious repetition and renewal by ritual. The Christ Child,
for instance, is a religious necessity only so long as the majority
of men are incapable of giving psychological reality to the say
ing: "Except ye become as little children. . . ." Since all such
developments and transitions are extraordinarily difficult and
dangerous, it is no wonder that figures of this kind persist for
hundreds or even thousands of years. Everything that man
should, and yet cannot, be or do—be it in a positive or nega
tive sense—lives on as a mythological figure and anticipation
alongside his consciousness, either as a religious projection or—
what is still more dangerous—as unconscious contents which
then project themselves spontaneously into incongruous objects,
e.g., hygienic and other "Salvationist" doctrines or practices. All
these are so many rationalized substitutes for mythology, and
their unnaturalness does more harm than good.
The conflict-situation that offers no way out, the sort of
situation that produces the "child" as the irrational third, is of
course a formula appropriate only to a psychological, that is,
modern stage of development. It is not strictly applicable to the
psychic life of primitives, if only because primitive man's child
like range of consciousness still excludes a whole world of pos
sible psychic experiences. Seen on the nature-level of the primi
tive, our modern moral conflict is still an objective calamity
that threatens life itself. Hence not a few child-figures are cul
ture-heroes and thus identified with things that promote cul
ture, e.g., fire, 30 metal, corn, maize, etc. As bringers of light,
that is, enlargers of consciousness, they overcome darkness,
which is to say that they overcome the earlier unconscious state.
Higher consciousness, or knowledge going beyond our presentday consciousness, is equivalent to being all alone in the world.
This loneliness expresses the conflict between the bearer or
symbol of higher consciousness and his surroundings. The con
querors of darkness go far back into primeval times, and, to
gether with many other legends, prove that there once existed
a state of original psychic distress, namely unconsciousness.
Hence in all probability the "irrational" fear which primitive
man has of the dark even today. I found a form of religion
among a tribe living on Mount Elgon that corresponded to
80 Even Christ is of a fiery nature ("he that is near to me is near to the fire"—
Origen, In Jeremiam Homiliae, XX, 3); likewise the Holy Ghost.
169
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
pantheistic optimism. Their optimistic mood was, however, al
ways in abeyance between six o'clock in the evening and six
o'clock in the morning, during which time it was replaced by
fear, for in the night the dark being Ayik has his dominion—
the "Maker of Fear." During the daytime there were no monster
snakes anywhere in the vicinity, but at night they were lurking
on every path. At night the whole of mythology was let loose.
2.
289
The Invincibility of the Child
It is a striking paradox in all child myths that the "child" is
on the one hand delivered helpless into the power of terrible
enemies and in continual danger of extinction, while on the
other he possesses powers far exceeding those of ordinary hu
manity. This is closely related to the psychological fact that
though the child may be "insignificant," unknown, "a mere
child," he is also divine. From the conscious standpoint we seem
to be dealing with an insignificant content that has no releasing,
let alone redeeming, character. The conscious mind is caught
in its conflict-situation, and the combatant forces seem so over
whelming that the "child" as an isolated content bears no rela
tion to the conscious factors. It is therefore easily overlooked
and falls back into the unconscious. At least, this is what we
should have to fear if things turned out according to our con
scious expectations. Myth, however, emphasizes that it is not so,
but that the "child" is endowed with superior powers and,
despite all dangers, will unexpectedly pull through. The "child"
is born out of the womb of the unconscious, begotten out of the
depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself.
It is a personification of vital forces quite outside the limited
range of our conscious mind; of ways and possibilities of which
our one-sided conscious mind knows nothing; a wholeness
which embraces the very depths of Nature. It represents the
strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the
urge to realize itself. It is, as it were, an incarnation of the in
ability to do otherwise, equipped with all the powers of nature
and instinct, whereas the conscious mind is always getting
caught up in its supposed ability to do otherwise. The urge and
compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of
invincible power, even though its effect, at the start, is insignifi170
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
cant and improbable. Its power is revealed in the miraculous
deeds of the child hero, and later in the athla ('works') of the
bondsman or thrall (of the Heracles type), where, although the
hero has outgrown the impotence of the "child," he is still in a
menial position. The figure of the thrall generally leads up to
the real epiphany of the semi-divine hero. Oddly enough, we
have a similar modulation of themes in alchemy—in the syno
nyms for the lapis. As the materia prima, it is the lapis exilis
et vilis. As a substance in process of transmutation, it is servus
rubeus or fugitivus; and finally, in its true apotheosis, it attains
the dignity of a ft litis sapientiae or deus terrenus, a "light above
all lights," a power that contains in itself all the powers of the
upper and nether regions. It becomes a corpus gloriftcatum
which enjoys everlasting incorruptibility and is therefore a
panacea ("bringer of healing"). 31 The size and invincibility of
the "child" are bound up in Hindu speculation with the nature
of the atman, which corresponds to the "smaller than small yet
bigger than big" motif. As an individual phenomenon, the self
is "smaller than small"; as the equivalent of the cosmos, it is
"bigger than big." The self, regarded as the counter-pole of the
world, its "absolutely other," is the sine qua non of all empiri
cal knowledge and consciousness of subject and object. Only be
cause of this psychic "otherness" is consciousness possible at
all. Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only
separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through
opposition that produce consciousness and insight. Hindu in
trospection recognized this psychological fact very early and con
sequently equated the subject of cognition with the subject of
ontology in general. In accordance with the predominantly in
troverted attitude of Indian thinking, the object lost the attri
bute of absolute reality and, in some systems, became a mere
illusion. The Greek-Occidental type of mind could not free
itself from the conviction of the world's absolute existence—at
the cost, however, of the cosmic significance of the self. Even
today Western man finds it hard to see the psychological neces
sity for a transcendental subject of cognition as the counter-pole
of the empirical universe, although the postulate of a world31 The material is collected in Psychology and Alchemy, Parts II and III. For
Mercurius as a servant, see the parable of Eirenaeus Philalethes, Ripley Reviv d.
or, An Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Hermetico -Poetical Works (1678).
171
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
confronting self, at least as a point of reflection } is a logical
necessity. Regardless of philosophy's perpetual attitude of dis
sent or only half-hearted assent, there is always a compensating
tendency in our unconscious psyche to produce a symbol of the
self in its cosmic significance. These efforts take on the arche
typal forms of the hero myth such as can be observed in almost
any individuation process.
29°
The phenomenology of the "child's" birth always points
back to an original psychological state of non-recognition, i.e.,
of darkness or twilight, of non-differentiation between subject
and object, of unconscious identity of man and the universe.
This phase of non-differentiation produces the golden egg,
which is both man and universe and yet neither, but an irra
tional third. To the twilight consciousness of primitive man it
seems as if the egg came out of the womb of the wide world and
were, accordingly, a cosmic, objective, external occurrence. To
a differentiated consciousness, on the other hand, it seems evi
dent that this egg is nothing but a symbol thrown up by the
psyche or—what is even worse—a fanciful speculation and there
fore "nothing but" a primitive phantasm to which no "reality"
of any kind attaches. Present-day medical psychology, however,
thinks somewhat differently about these "phantasms." It knows
only too well what dire disturbances of the bodily functions and
what devastating psychic consequences can flow from "mere"
fantasies. "Fantasies" are the natural expressions of the life of
the unconscious. But since the unconscious is the psyche of all
the body's autonomous functional complexes, its "fantasies"
have an aetiological significance that is not to be despised. From
the psychopathology of the individuation process we know that
the formation of symbols is frequently associated with physical
disorders of a psychic origin, which in some cases are felt as
decidedly "real." In medicine, fantasies are real things with
which the psychotherapist has to reckon very seriously indeed.
He cannot therefore deprive of all justification those primitive
phantasms whose content is so real that it is projected upon
the external world. In the last analysis the human body, too, is
built of the stuff of the world, the very stuff wherein fantasies
become visible; indeed, without it they could not be experienced
at all. Without this stuff they would be like a sort of abstract
172
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
crystalline lattice in a solution where the crystallization process
had not yet started.
1
29
The symbols of the self arise in the depths of the body and
they express its materiality every bit as much as the structure of
the perceiving consciousness. The symbol is thus a living body,
corpus et anima; hence the "child" is such an apt formula for
the symbol. The uniqueness of the psyche can never enter
wholly into reality, it can only be realized approximately,
though it still remains the absolute basis of all consciousness.
The deeper "layers" of the psyche lose their individual unique
ness as they retreat farther and farther into darkness. "Lower
down," that is to say as they approach the autonomous func
tional systems, they become increasingly collective until they
are universalized and extinguished in the body's materiality,
i.e., in chemical substances. The body's carbon is simply carbon.
Hence "at bottom" the psyche is simply "world." In this sense
I hold Kerenyi to be absolutely right when he says that in
the symbol the iuorld itself is speaking. The more archaic and
"deeper," that is the more physiological, the symbol is, the more
collective and universal, the more "material" it is. The more
abstract, differentiated, and specific it is, and the more its na
ture approximates to conscious uniqueness and individuality,
the more it sloughs off its universal character. Having finally
attained full consciousness, it runs the risk of becoming a mere
allegory which nowhere oversteps the bounds of conscious com
prehension, and is then exposed to all sorts of attempts at ra
tionalistic and therefore inadequate explanation.
3. The Hermaphroditism of the Child
298
It is a remarkable fact that perhaps the majority of cosmogonic gods are of a bisexual nature. The hermaphrodite means
nothing less than a union of the strongest and most striking opposites. In the first place this union refers back to a primitive
state of mind, a twilight where differences and contrasts were
either barely separated or completely merged. With increasing
clarity of consciousness, however, the opposites draw more and
more distinctly and irreconcilably apart. If, therefore, the
hermaphrodite were only a product of primitive non-differentiation, we would have to expect that it would soon be eliminated
1 TS
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
with increasing civilization. This is by no means the case; on
the contrary, man's imagination has been preoccupied with this
idea over and over again on the high and even the highest levels
of culture, as we can see from the late Greek and syncretic
philosophy of Gnosticism. The hermaphroditic rebis has an
important part to play in the natural philosophy of the Middle
Ages. And in our own day we hear of Christ's androgyny in
Catholic mysticism. 32
293
We can no longer be dealing, then, with the continued ex
istence of a primitive phantasm, or with an original contamina
tion of opposites. Rather, as we can see from medieval writings, 33
the primordial idea has become a symbol of the creative union
of opposites, a "uniting symbol" in the literal sense. In its func
tional significance the symbol no longer points back, but
forward to a goal not yet reached. Notwithstanding its mon
strosity, the hermaphrodite has gradually turned into a subduer
of conflicts and a bringer of healing, and it acquired this mean
ing in relatively early phases of civilization. This vital meaning
explains why the image of the hermaphrodite did not fade out
in primeval times but, on the contrary, was able to assert itself
with increasing profundity of symbolic content for thousands
of years. The fact that an idea so utterly archaic could rise to
such exalted heights of meaning not only points to the vitality
of archetypal ideas, it also demonstrates the Tightness of the
principle that the archetype, because of its power to unite
opposites, mediates between the unconscious substratum and
the conscious mind. It throws a bridge between present-day
consciousness, always in danger of losing its roots, and the
natural, unconscious, instinctive wholeness of primeval times.
Through this mediation the uniqueness, peculiarity, and onesidedness of our present individual consciousness are linked up
again with its natural, racial roots. Progress and development
are ideals not lightly to be rejected, but they lose all meaning
if man only arrives at his new state as a fragment of himself,
having left his essential hinterland behind him in the shadow of
the unconscious, in a state of primitivity or, indeed, barbarism.
The conscious mind, split off from its origins, incapable of
32 Koepgen,
Die Gnosis des Christentums, pp. gigff.
33 For the lapis as mediator and medium, cf. Tractatus aureus, in Manget 1
Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, I, p. 408b, and Artis auriferae (1572)» p. 641.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
realizing the meaning of the new state, then relapses all too
easily into a situation far worse than the one from which the
innovation was intended to free it—exempla sunt odiosa! It was
Friedrich Schiller who first had an inkling of this problem; but
neither his contemporaries nor his successors were capable of
drawing any conclusions. Instead, people incline more than
ever to educate children and nothing more. I therefore suspect
that the furor paedogogicus is a god-sent method of by-passing
the central problem touched on by Schiller, namely the educa
tion of the educator. Children are educated by what the grown
up is and not by what he says. The popular faith in words is a
veritable disease of the mind, for a superstition of this sort al
ways leads farther and farther away from man's foundations
and seduces people into a disastrous identification of the person
ality with whatever slogan may be in vogue. Meanwhile every
thing that has been overcome and left behind by so-called
"progress" sinks deeper and deeper into the unconscious, from
which there re-emerges in the end the primitive condition of
identity with the mass. Instead of the expected progress, this
condition now becomes reality.
294
As civilization develops, the bisexual primordial being turns
into a symbol of the unity of personality, a symbol of the self,
where the war of opposites finds peace. In this way the primor
dial being becomes the distant goal of man's self-development,
having been from the very beginning a projection of his uncon
scious wholeness. Wholeness consists in the union of the con
scious and the unconscious personality. Just as every individual
derives from masculine and feminine genes, and the sex is
determined by the predominance of the corresponding genes,
so in the psyche it is only the conscious mind, in a man, that
has the masculine sign, while the unconscious is by nature
feminine. The reverse is true in the case of a woman. All I have
done in my anima theory is to rediscover and reformulate this
fact.34 It had long been known.
295
The idea of the coniunctio of male and female, which be
came almost a technical term in Hermetic philosophy, ap
pears in Gnosticism as the mysterium iniquitatis, probably not
uninfluenced by the Old Testament "divine marriage" as
M Psychological Types, Def. 48; and "Relations between the Ego and the Un
conscious," pars. zg6S.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
performed, for instance, by Hosea. 35 Such things are hinted at
not only by certain traditional customs, 38 but by the quotation
from the Gospel according to the Egyptians in the second epistle
of Clement: "When the two shall be one, the outside as the
inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female." 3 7
Clement of Alexandria introduces this logion with the words:
"When ye have trampled on the garment of shame (with thy
feet) . . . ," 3 8 which probably refers to the body; for Clement
as well as Cassian (from whom the quotation was taken over),
and the pseudo-Clement, too, interpreted the words in a spirit
ual sense, in contrast to the Gnostics, who would seem to have
taken the coniunctio all too literally. They took care, however,
through the practice of abortion and other restrictions, that the
biological meaning of their acts did not swamp the religious
significance of the rite. While, in Church mysticism, the pri
mordial image of the hieros gamos was sublimated on a lofty
plane and only occasionally—as for instance with Mechthild of
Magdeburg 39 —approached the physical sphere in emotional
intensity, for the rest of the world it remained very much alive
and continued to be the object of especial psychic preoccupa
tion. In this respect the symbolical drawings of Opicinus de
Canistris 40 afford us an interesting glimpse of the way in which
this primordial image was instrumental in uniting opposites,
even in a pathological state. On the other hand, in the Hermetic
philosophy that throve in the Middle Ages the coniunctio was
performed wholly in the physical realm in the admittedly ab
stract theory of the coniugium solis et lunae, which despite this
drawback gave the creative imagination much occasion for
anthropomorphic flights.
z96
Such being the state of affairs, it is readily understandable
that the primordial image of the hermaphrodite should reap
pear in modern psychology in the guise of the male-female
antithesis, in other words as male consciousness and personified
female unconscious. But the psychological process of bringing
things to consciousness has complicated the picture consider
ably. Whereas the old science was almost exclusively a field in
35 Hosea ι : 2fl.
38 Cf. Fendt, Gnostische Mysterien.
37 James, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. n.
38 Clement, Stromata, III, 13, 92, 2.
39 The Flowing Light of the Godhead.
10 Salomon, Opicinus de Canistris.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
«97
which only the man's unconscious could project itself, the new
psychology had to acknowledge the existence of an autonomous
female psyche as well. Here the case is reversed, and a femi
nine consciousness confronts a masculine personification of the
unconscious, which can no longer be called anima but animus.
This discovery also complicates the problem of the coniunctio.
Originally this archetype played its part entirely in the field
of fertility magic and thus remained for a very long time a
purely biological phenomenon with no other purpose than that
of fecundation. But even in early antiquity the symbolical
meaning of the act seems to have increased. Thus, for example,
the physical performance of the hieros gamos as a sacred rite
not only became a mystery—it faded to a mere conjecture. 41 As
we have seen, Gnosticism, too, endeavoured in all seriousness
to subordinate the physiological to the metaphysical. Finally,
the Church severed the coniunctio from the physical realm alto
gether, and natural philosophy turned it into an abstract
theoria. These developments meant the gradual transformation
of the archetype into a psychological process which, in theory,
we can call a combination of conscious and unconscious proc
esses. In practice, however, it is not so simple, because as a rule
the feminine unconscious of a man is projected upon a feminine
partner, and the masculine unconscious of a woman is projected
upon a man. The elucidation of these problems is a special
branch of psychology and has no part in a discussion of the
mythological hermaphrodite.
4. The Child as Beginning and End
s9®
Faust, after his death, is received as a boy into the "choir of
blessed youths." I do not know whether Goethe was referring,
with this peculiar idea, to the cupids on antique grave-stones. It
is not unthinkable. The figure of the cucullatus points to the
hooded, that is, the invisible one, the genius of the departed,
who reappears in the child-like frolics of a new life, surrounded
by the sea-forms of dolphins and tritons. The sea is the favourite
«Cf. the diatribe by Bishop Asterius (Foucart, Mystires of d'Eleusis, pp. 477®·)·
According to Hippolytus' account the hierophant actually made himself impotent
by a draught of hemlock. The self-castration of priests in the worship of the
Mother Goddess is of similar import.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
symbol for the unconscious, the mother of all that lives. Just as
the "child" is, in certain circumstances (e.g., in the case of
Hermes and the Dactyls), closely related to the phallus, symbol
of the begetter, so it comes up again in the sepulchral phallus,
symbol of a renewed begetting.
s 99
The "child" is therefore renatus in novam infantiam. It is
thus both beginning and end, an initial and a terminal creature.
The initial creature existed before man was, and the terminal
creature will be when man is not. Psychologically speaking, this
means that the "child" symbolizes the pre-conscious and the
post-conscious essence of man. His pre-conscious essence is the
unconscious state of earliest childhood; his post-conscious essence
is an anticipation by analogy of life after death. In this idea
the all-embracing nature of psychic wholeness is expressed.
Wholeness is never comprised within the compass of the con
scious mind—it includes the indefinite and indefinable extent
of the unconscious as well. Wholeness, empirically speaking, is
therefore of immeasurable extent, older and younger than con
sciousness and enfolding it in time and space. This is no specu
lation, but an immediate psychic experience. Not only is the
conscious process continually accompanied, it is often guided,
helped, or interrupted, by unconscious happenings. The child
had a psychic life before it had consciousness. Even the adult still
says and does things whose significance he realizes only later, if
ever. And yet he said them and did them as if he knew what
they meant. Our dreams are continually saying things beyond
our conscious comprehension (which is why they are so useful
in the therapy of neuroses). We have intimations and intuitions
from unknown sources. Fears, moods, plans, and hopes come to
us with no visible causation. These concrete experiences are
at the bottom of our feeling that we know ourselves very little;
at the bottom, too, of the painful conjecture that we might
have surprises in store for ourselves.
00
3
Primitive man is no puzzle to himself. The question "What
is man?" is the question that man has always kept until last.
Primitive man has so much psyche outside his conscious mind
that the experience of something psychic outside him is far
more familiar to him than to us. Consciousness hedged about
by psychic powers, sustained or threatened or deluded by them,
is the age-old experience of mankind. This experience has pro178
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
jected itself into the archetype of the child, which expresses
man's wholeness. The "child" is all that is abandoned and
exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the insignifi
cant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The "eternal
child" in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity,
a handicap, and a divine prerogative; an imponderable that de
termines the ultimate worth or worthlessness of a personality.
IV. CONCLUSION
3°l
I am aware that a psychological commentary on the child
archetype without detailed documentation must remain a mere
sketch. But since this is virgin territory for the psychologist, my
main endeavour has been to stake out the possible extent of the
problems raised by our archetype and to describe, at least cur
sorily, its different aspects. Clear-cut distinctions and strict for
mulations are quite impossible in this field, seeing that a kind
of fluid interpenetration belongs to the very nature of all arche
types. They can only be roughly circumscribed at best. Their
living meaning comes out more from their presentation as a
whole than from a single formulation. Every attempt to focus
them more sharply is immediately punished by the intangible
core of meaning losing its luminosity. No archetype can be re
duced to a simple formula. It is a vessel which we can never
empty, and never fill. It has a potential existence only, and
when it takes shape in matter it is no longer what it was. It
persists throughout the ages and requires interpreting ever
anew. The archetypes are the imperishable elements of the un
conscious, but they change their shape continually.
S0*
It is a well-nigh hopeless undertaking to tear a single arche
type out of the living tissue of the psyche; but despite their
interwovenness they do form units of meaning that can be ap
prehended intuitively. Psychology, as one of the many expres
sions of psychic life, operates with ideas which in their turn are
derived from archetypal structures and thus generate a some
what more abstract kind of myth. Psychology therefore trans
lates the archaic speech of myth into a modern mythologem—not
yet, of course, recognized as such—which constitutes one ele
ment of the myth "science." This seemingly hopeless undertaking
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
is a living and lived myth, satisfying to persons of a correspond
ing temperament, indeed beneficial in so far as they have been
cut off from their psychic origins by neurotic dissociation.
303
As a matter of experience, we meet the child archetype in
spontaneous and in therapeutically induced individuation proc
esses. The first manifestation of the "child" is as a rule a totally
unconscious phenomenon. Here the patient identifies himself
with his personal infantilism. Then, under the influence of
therapy, we get a more or less gradual separation from and
objedification of the "child," that is, the identity breaks down
and is accompanied by an intensification (sometimes technically
induced) of fantasy, with the result that archaic or mythological
features become increasingly apparent. Further transformations
run true to the hero myth. The theme of "mighty feats" is gen
erally absent, but on the other hand the mythical dangers play
all the greater part. At this stage there is usually another identi
fication, this time with the hero, whose role is attractive for a
variety of reasons. The identification is often extremely stub
born and dangerous to the psychic equilibrium. If it can be
broken down and if consciousness can be reduced to human
proportions, the figure of the hero can gradually be differen
tiated into a symbol of the self.
3°4
In practical reality, however, it is of course not enough for
the patient merely to know about such developments; what
counts is his experience of the various transformations. The
initial stage of personal infantilism presents the picture of an
"abandoned" or "misunderstood" and unjustly treated child
with overweening pretensions. The epiphany of the hero (the
second identification) shows itself in a corresponding inflation:
the colossal pretension grows into a conviction that one is some
thing extraordinary, or else the impossibility of the pretension
ever being fulfilled only proves one's own inferiority, which is
favourable to the role of the heroic sufferer (a negative infla
tion). In spite of their contradictoriness, both forms are identi
cal, because conscious megalomania is balanced by unconscious
compensatory inferiority and conscious inferiority by uncon
scious megalomania (you never get one without the other).
Once the reef of the second identification has been successfully
circumnavigated, conscious processes can be cleanly separated
from the unconscious, and the latter observed objectively. This
180
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD ARCHETYPE
3°5
leads to the possibility of an accommodation with the uncon
scious, and thus to a possible synthesis of the conscious and un
conscious elements of knowledge and action. This in turn leads
to a shifting of the centre of personality from the ego to the
self. 42
In this psychological framework the motifs of abandonment,
invincibility, hermaphroditism, and beginning and end take
their place as distinct categories of experience and understand
ing.
42 A more detailed account of these developments is to be found in "The Relations
between the Ego and the Unconscious."
l8l
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
306
Not only is the figure of Demeter and the Kore in its three
fold aspect as maiden, mother, and Hecate not unknown to the
psychology of the unconscious, it is even something of a prac
tical problem. The "Kore" has her psychological counterpart
in those archetypes which I have called the self or supraordinate
personality on the one hand, and the anima on the other. In
order to explain these figures, with which I cannot assume all
readers to be familiar, I must begin with some remarks of a
general nature.
3°7
The psychologist has to contend with the same difficulties as
the mythologist when an exact definition or clear and concise
information is demanded of him. The picture is concrete, clear,
and subject to no misunderstandings only when it is seen in its
habitual context. In this form it tells us everything it contains.
But as soon as one tries to abstract the "real essence" of the
picture, the whole thing becomes cloudy and indistinct. In order
to understand its living function, we must let it remain an
organic thing in all its complexity and not try to examine the
anatomy of its corpse in the manner of the scientist, or the
archaeology of its ruins in the manner of the historian. Natu
rally this is not to deny the justification of such methods when
applied in their proper place.
308
Jn view of the enormous complexity of psychic phenomena,
a purely phenomenological point of view is, and will be for a
long time, the only possible one and the only one with any
prospect of success. "Whence" things come and "what" they are,
these, particularly in the field of psychology, are questions which
are apt to call forth untimely attempts at explanation. Such
speculations are moreover based far more on unconscious philo
sophical premises than on the nature of the phenomena them
selves. Psychic phenomena occasioned by unconscious processes
are so rich and so multifarious that I prefer to describe my
findings and observations and, where possible, to classify them—
182
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
that is, to arrange them under certain definite types. That is the
method of natural science, and it is applied wherever we have to
do with multifarious and still unorganized material. One may
question the utility or the appropriateness of the categories or
types used in the arrangement, but not the correctness of the
method itself.
3°9
Since for years I have been observing and investigating the
products of the unconscious in the widest sense of the word,
namely dreams, fantasies, visions, and delusions of the insane,
I have not been able to avoid recognizing certain regularities,
that is, types. There are types of situations and types of figures
that repeat themselves frequently and have a corresponding
meaning. I therefore employ the term "motif" to designate these
repetitions. Thus there are not only typical dreams but typical
motifs in the dreams. These may, as we have said, be situations
or figures. Among the latter there are human figures that can be
arranged under a series of archetypes, the chief of them being,
according to my suggestion, 1 the shadow, the wise old man, the
child (including the child hero), the mother ("Primordial
Mother" and "Earth Mother") as a supraordinate personality
("daemonic" because supraordinate), and her counterpart the
maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman.
S10
The above types are far from exhausting all the statistical
regularities in this respect. The figure of the Kore that interests
us here belongs, when observed in a man, to the anima type;
and when observed in a woman to the type of supraordinate
personality. It is an essential characteristic of psychic figures that
they are duplex or at least capable of duplication; at all events
they are bipolar and oscillate between their positive and nega
tive meanings. Thus the "supraordinate" personality can ap
pear in a despicable and distorted form, like for instance Mephistopheles, who is really more positive as a personality than the
vapid and unthinking careerist Faust. Another negative figure
1
To the best of my knowledge, no other suggestions have been made so far. Critics
have contented themselves with asserting that no such archetypes exist. Certainly
they do not exist, any more than a botanical system exists in nature! But will any
one deny the existence of natural plant-families on that account? Or will anyone
deny the occurrence and continual repetition of certain morphological and func
tional similarities? It is much the same thing in principle with the typical figures
of the unconscious. They are forms existing a priori, or biological norms of psychic
activity.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
3 11
is the Tom Thumb or Tom Dumb of the folktales. The figure
corresponding to the Kore in a woman is generally a double
one, i.e., a mother and a maiden, which is to say that she
appears now as the one, now as the other. From this I would
conclude, for a start, that in the formation of the DemeterKore myth the feminine influence so far outweighed the mascu
line that the latter had practically no significance. The man's
role in the Demeter myth is really only that of seducer or con
queror.
As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears
in woman as an unknown young girl, not infrequently as
Gretchen or the unmarried mother. 2 Another frequent modula
tion is the dancer, who is often formed by borrowings from clas
sical knowledge, in which case the "maiden" appears as the
corybant, maenad, or nymph. An occasional variant is the nixie
or water-sprite, who betrays her superhuman nature by her fish
tail. Sometimes the Kore- and mother-figures slither down alto
gether to the animal kingdom, the favourite representatives
then being the cat or the snake or the bear, or else some black
monster of the underworld like the crocodile, or other sala
mander-like, saurian creatures. 3 The maiden's helplessness ex
poses her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured
by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice. Often
there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the
innocent child falls victim. Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a
descent into Hades and a quest for the "treasure hard to attain,"
occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings
of menstrual blood to the moon. Oddly enough, the various
tortures and obscenities are carried out by an "Earth Mother."
There are drinkings of blood and bathings in blood* also cruci2 The "personalistic" approach interprets such dreams as "wish-fuIfiIments." To
many, this kind of interpretation seems the only possible one. These dreams, how
ever, occur in the most varied circumstances, even in circumstances when the
wish-fulfilment theory becomes entirely forced or arbitrary. The investigation of
motifs in the field of dreams therefore seems to me the more cautious and the
more appropriate procedure.
HThe double vision of a salamander, of which Benvenuto Cellini tells in his
autobiography, would be an anima-projection caused by the music his father was
playing.
4 One of my patients, whose principal difficulty was a negative mother-complex,
developed a series of fantasies on a primitive mother-figure, an Indian woman,
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
fixions. The maiden who crops up in case histories differs not
inconsiderably from the vaguely flower-like Kore in that the
modern figure is more sharply delineated and not nearly so
"unconscious," as the following examples will show.
3'2
The figures corresponding to Demeter and Hecate are supraordinate, not to say over-life-size "Mothers" ranging from the
Pieta type to the Baubo type. The unconscious, which acts as a
counterbalance to woman's conventional innocuousness, proves
to be highly inventive in this latter respect. I can recall only
very few cases where Demeter's own noble figure in its pure
form breaks through as an image rising spontaneously from the
unconscious. I remember a case, in fact, where a maiden-goddess
appears clad all in purest white, but carrying a black monkey in
her arms. The Earth Mother is always chthonic and is occa
sionally related to the moon, either through the blood-sacrifice
already mentioned, or through a child-sacrifice, or else because
she is adorned with a sickle moon. 5 In pictorial or plastic repre
sentations the Mother is dark deepening to black, or red (these
being her principal colours), and with a primitive or animal
expression of face; in form she not infrequently resembles the
who instructed her on the nature of woman in general. In these pronouncements
a special paragraph is devoted to blood, running as follous: "A woman's life is
close to the blood. Every month she is reminded of this, and birth is indeed a
bloody business, destructive and creative. A woman is only permitted to give birth,
but the new life is not her creation. In her heart of hearts she knows this and
rejoices in the grace that has fallen to her. She is a little mother, not the Great
Mother. But her little pattern is like the great pattern. If she understands this she
is blessed by nature, because she has submitted in the right way and can thus
partake of the nourishment of the Great Mother. . . ."
5 Often the moon is simply "there," as for instance in a fantasy of the chthonic
mother in the shape of the "Woman of the Bees" (Josephine D. Baton, In the
Border Country, pp. ljlf.): "The path led to a tiny hut of the same colour as the
four great trees that stood about it. Its door hung wide open, and in the middle
of it, on a low stool, there sat an old woman wrapped in a long cloak, looking
kindly at her, , . ." The hut was filled with the steady humming of bees. In the
corner of the hut there was a deep cold spring, in which "a white moon and little
stars" were reflected. The old woman exhorted the heroine to remember the duties
of a woman's life. In Tantric yoga an "indistinct hum of swarms of lovc-mad bees"
proceeds from the slumbering Shakti (Shat-Chakra Nirupana, in Avalon, The
Serpent Power, p. 29). Cf. infra, the dancer who dissolves into a swarm of bees.
Bees are also, as an allegory, connected with Mary, as the text for the consecration
o£ the Easter candle shows. See Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Oiigin and
Evolution, p. 253.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
3>3
3l4
neolithic ideal of the "Venus" of Brassempouy or that of Willendorf, or again the sleeper of Hal Saflieni.8 Now and then I have
come across multiple breasts, arranged like those of a sow. The
Earth Mother plays an important part in the woman's uncon
scious, for all her manifestations are described as "powerful."
This shows that in such cases the Earth Mother element in the
conscious mind is abnormally weak and requires strengthening.
In view of all this it is, I admit, hardly understandable why
such figures should be reckoned as belonging to the type of
"supraordinate personality." In a scientific investigation, how
ever, one has to disregard moral or aesthetic prejudices and let
the facts speak for themselves. The maiden is often described
as not altogether human in the usual sense; she is either of un
known or peculiar origin, or she looks strange or undergoes
strange experiences, from which one is forced to infer the
maiden's extraordinary, myth-like nature. Equally and still
more strikingly, the Earth Mother is a divine being—in the
classical sense. Moreover, she does not by any means always
appear in the guise of Baubo, but, for instance, more like Queen
Venus in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphilii though she is in
variably heavy with destiny. The often unaesthetic forms of
the Earth Mother are in keeping with a prejudice of the modern
feminine unconscious; this prejudice was lacking in antiquity.
The underworld nature of Hecate, who is closely connected
with Demeter, and Persephone's fate both point nevertheless to
the dark side of the human psyche, though not to the same ex
tent as the modern material.
The "supraordinate personality" is the total man, i.e., man
as he really is, not as he appears to himself. To this wholeness
the unconscious psyche also belongs, which has its requirements
and needs just as consciousness has. I do not want to interpret
the unconscious personalistically and assert, for instance, that
fantasy-images like those described above are the "wish-fulfil
ments" due to repression. These images were as such never
conscious and consequently could never have been repressed. I
understand the unconscious rather as an impersonal psyche
common to all men, even though it expresses itself through a
β [See Neumann, The Great Mother, Pis. ia, 3. This entire work elucidates the
present study.—EDITORS.]
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
personal consciousness. When anyone breathes, his breathing
is not a phenomenon to be interpreted personally. The mytho
logical images belong to the structure of the unconscious and
are an impersonal possession; in fact, the great majority of men
are far more possessed by them than possessing them. Images
like those described above give rise under certain conditions to
corresponding disturbances and symptoms, and it is then the
task of medical therapy to find out whether and how and to
what extent these impulses can be integrated with the conscious
personality, or whether they are a secondary phenomenon which
some defective orientation of consciousness has brought out of
its normal potential state into actuality. Both possibilities exist
in practice.
3'5
I usually describe the supraordinate personality as the "self,"
thus making a sharp distinction between the ego, which, as is
well known, extends only as far as the conscious mind, and the
whole of the personality, which includes the unconscious as
well as the conscious component. The ego is thus related to the
self as part to whole. To that extent the self is supraordinate.
Moreover, the self is felt empirically not as subject but as object,
and this by reason of its unconscious component, which can
only come to consciousness indirectly, by way of projection. Be
cause of its unconscious component the self is so far removed
from the conscious mind that it can only be partially expressed
by human figures; the other part of it has to be expressed by
objective, abstract symbols. The human figures are father
and son, mother and daughter, king and queen, god and
goddess. Theriomorphic symbols are the dragon, snake, ele
phant, lion, bear, and other powerful animals, or again the
spider, crab, butterfly, beetle, worm, etc. Plant symbols are gen
erally flowers (lotus and rose). These lead on to geometrical
figures like the circle, the sphere, the square, the quaternity,
the clock, the firmament, and so on.7 The indefinite extent of
the unconscious component makes a comprehensive description
of the human personality impossible. Accordingly, the uncon
scious supplements the picture with living figures ranging from
the animal to the divine, as the two extremes outside man, and
rounds out the animal extreme, through the addition of
T Psychology and Alchemy, Part II.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
vegetable and inorganic abstractions, into a microcosm. These
addenda have a high frequency in anthropomorphic divinities,
where they appear as "attributes."
S'6
Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter, extend the femi
nine consciousness both upwards and downwards. They add an
"older and younger," "stronger and weaker" dimension to it
and widen out the narrowly limited conscious mind bound in
space and time, giving it intimations of a greater and more
comprehensive personality which has a share in the eternal
course of things. We can hardly suppose that myth and mystery
were invented for any conscious purpose; it seems much more
likely that they were the involuntary revelation of a psychic,
but unconscious, pre-condition. The psyche pre-existent to con
sciousness (e.g., in the child) participates in the maternal psyche
on the one hand, while on the other it reaches across to the
daughter psyche. We could therefore say that every mother
contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother,
and that every woman extends backwards into her mother and
forwards into her daughter. This participation and intermin
gling give rise to that peculiar uncertainty as regards time: a
woman lives earlier as a mother, later as a daughter. The con
scious experience of these ties produces the feeling that her life
is spread out over generations—the first step towards the imme
diate experience and conviction of being outside time, which
brings with it a feeling of immortality. The individual's life is
elevated into a type, indeed it becomes the archetype of woman's
fate in general. This leads to a restoration or apocatastasis of
the lives of her ancestors, who now, through the bridge of the
momentary individual, pass down into the generations of the
future. An experience of this kind gives the individual a place
and a meaning in the life of the generations, so that all unneces
sary obstacles are cleared out of the way of the life-stream that
is to flow through her. At the same time the individual is
rescued from her isolation and restored to wholeness. All ritual
preoccupation with archetypes ultimately has this aim and this
result.
317
It is immediately clear to the psychologist what cathartic and
at the same rejuvenating effects must flow from the Demeter
cult into the feminine psyche, and what a lack of psychic hygiene
188
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
characterizes our culture, which no longer knows the kind of
wholesome experience afforded by Eleusinian emotions.
318
I take full account of the fact that not only the psychologi
cally minded layman but the professional psychologist and
psychiatrist as well, and even the psychotherapist, do not possess
an adequate knowledge of their patients' archetypal material,
in so far as they have not specially investigated this aspect of
the phenomenology of the unconscious. For it is precisely in the
field of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic observation that we
frequently meet with cases characterized by a rich crop of arche
typal symbols. 8 Since the necessary historical knowledge is lack
ing to the physician observing them, he is not in a position to
perccive the parallelism between his observations and the find
ings of anthropology and the humane sciences in general. Con
versely, an expert in mythology and comparative religion is as
a rule no psychiatrist and consequently does not know that his
mythologems are still fresh and living—for instance, in dreams
and visions—in the hidden recesses of our most personal life,
which we would on no account deliver up to scientific dissec
tion. The archetypal material is therefore the great unknown,
and it requires special study and preparation even to collect
such material.
3'9
It does not seem to me superfluous to give a number of ex
amples from my case histories which bring out the occurrence of
archetypal images in dreams or fantasies. Time and again with
my public I come across the difficulty that they imagine illustra
tion by "a few examples" to be the simplest thing in the world.
In actual fact it is almost impossible, with a few words and one
or two images torn out of their context, to demonstrate any
thing. This only works when dealing with an expert. What
Perseus has to do with the Gorgon's head would never occur to
anyone who did not know the myth. So it is with the individual
images: they need a context, and the context is not only a myth
but an individual anamnesis. Such contexts, however, are of
enormous extent. Anything like a complete series of images
would require for its proper presentation a book of about two
hundred pages. My own investigation of the Miller fantasies
8 I would refer to the thesis of my pupil Jan Nelken, "Analytische Beobachtungen
iiber Phantasien eines Schizophrenen," as also to my own analysis of a series of
fantasies in Symbols 0/ Transformation.
l8<J
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
320
gives some idea of this.9 It is therefore with the greatest hesita
tion that I make the attempt to illustrate from case-histories.
The material I shall use comes partly from normal, partly from
slightly neurotic, persons. It is part dream, part vision, or dream
mixed with vision. These "visions" are far from being hallucina
tions or ecstatic states; they are spontaneous, visual images of
fantasy or so-called active imagination. The latter is a method
(devised by myself) of introspection for observing the stream
of interior images. One concentrates one's attention on some
impressive but unintelligible dream-image, or on a spontane
ous visual impression, and observes the changes taking place
in it. Meanwhile, of course, all criticism must be suspended and
the happenings observed and noted with absolute objectivity.
Obviously, too, the objection that the whole thing is "arbitrary"
or "thought up" must be set aside, since it springs from the
anxiety of an ego-consciousness which brooks no master besides
itself in its own house. In other words, it is the inhibition
exerted by the conscious mind on the unconscious.
Under these conditions, long and often very dramatic series
of fantasies ensue. The advantage of this method is that it brings
a mass of unconscious material to light. Drawing, painting, and
modelling can be used to the same end. Once a visual series has
become dramatic, it can easily pass over into the auditive or
linguistic sphere and give rise to dialogues and the like. With
slightly pathological individuals, and particularly in the not in
frequent cases of latent schizophrenia, the method may, in cer
tain circumstances, prove to be rather dangerous and therefore
requires medical control. It is based on a deliberate weakening
of the conscious mind and its inhibiting effect, which either
limits or suppresses the unconscious. The aim of the method is
naturally therapeutic in the first place, while in the second it
also furnishes rich empirical material. Some of our examples are
taken from this. They differ from dreams only by reason of their
better form, which comes from the fact that the contents were
perceived not by a dreaming but by a waking consciousness. The
examples are from women in middle life.
9 Cf. Symbols of Transformation. H. G. Baynes' book, The Mythology of the Soul,
runs to 939 pages and endeavours to do justice to the material provided by only
two cases.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
i. Case X (spontaneous visual impressions,
in chronological order)
321
jsa
J«3
3*4
S85
386
i. "I saw a white bird with outstretched wings. It alighted
on the figure of a woman, clad in blue, iuho sat there like an
antique statue. The bird perched on her hand, and in it she held
a grain of wheat. The bird took it in its beak and flew into the
sky again."
For this X painted a picture: a blue-clad, archaically simple
"Mother"-figure on a white marble base. Her maternity is
emphasized by the large breasts.
ii. A bull lifts a child up from the ground and carries it to
the antique statue of a woman. A naked young girl with a
wreath of flowers in her hair appears, riding on a white bull.
She takes the child and throws it into the air like a ball and
catches it again. The white bull carries them both to a temple.
The girl lays the child on the ground, and so on (initiation fol
lows).
In this picture the maiden appears, rather in the form of
Europa. (Here a certain school knowledge is being made use of.)
Her nakedness and the wreath of flowers point to Dionysian
abandonment. The game of ball with the child is the motif of
some secret rite which always has to do with "child-sacrifice."
(Cf. the accusations of ritual murder levelled by the pagans
against the Christians and by the Christians against the Jews
and Gnostics; also the Phoenician child-sacrifices, rumours
about the Black Mass, etc., and "the ball-game in church.")10
iii. "I saw a golden pig on a pedestal. Beast-like beings
danced round it in a circle. We made haste to dig a hole in the
ground. I reached in and found water. Then a man appeared
in a golden carriage. He jumped into the hole and began sway
ing back and forth, as if dancing. . . . I swayed in rhythm with
him. Then he suddenly leaped out of the hole, raped me, and
got me with child."
X is identical with the young girl, who often appears as a
youth, too. This youth is an animus-figure, the embodiment of
the masculine element in a woman. Youth and young girl to
gether form a syzygy or coniunctio which symbolizes the essence
10
[Cf. infra, "On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure."—EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
327
3¾8
329
33°
331
of wholeness (as also does the Platonic hermaphrodite, who
later became the symbol of perfected wholeness in alchemical
philosophy). X evidently dances with the rest, hence "we made
haste." The parallel with the motifs stressed by Kerenyi seems
to me remarkable.
iv. "I saw a beautiful youth with golden cymbals, dancing
and leaping in joy and abandonment. . . . Finally he fell to
the ground and buried his face in the flowers. Then he sank
into the lap of a very old mother. After a time he got up and
jumped into the Water j where he sported like a dolphin. . . .
I saw that his hair was golden. Now we were leaping together,
hand in hand. So we came to a gorge. . . ." In leaping the gorge
the youth falls into the chasm. X is left alone and comes to a
river where a white sea-horse is waiting for her with a golden
boat.
In this scene X is the youth; therefore he disappears later,
leaving her the sole heroine of the story. She is the child of the
"very old mother," and is also the dolphin, the youth lost in the
gorge, and the bride evidently expected by Poseidon. The pe
culiar overlapping and displacement of motifs in all this individ
ual material is about the same as in the mythological variants.
X found the youth in the lap of the mother so impressive that
she painted a picture of it. The figure is the same as in item i;
only, instead of the grain of wheat in her hand, there is the
body of the youth lying completely exhausted in the lap of
the gigantic mother.
v. There now follows a sacrifice of sheep, during which a
game of ball is likewise played with the sacrificial animal. The
participants smear themselves with the sacrificial blood, and
afterwards bathe in the pulsing gore. X is thereupon trans
formed into a plant.
vi. After that X comes to a den of snakes, and the snakes
wind all round her.
vii. In a den of snakes beneath the sea there is a divine
woman, asleep. (She is shown in the picture as much larger than
the others.) She is wearing a blood-red garment that covers only
the lower half of her body. She has a dark skin, full red lips,
and seems to be of great physical strength. She kisses X, who is
obviously in the role of the young girl, and hands her as a pres
ent to the many men who are standitig by } etc.
192
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
332
This chthonic goddess is the typical Earth Mother as she
appears in so many modern fantasies.
333
viii. As X emerged from the depths and saw the light again,
she experienced a kind of illumination: white flames played
about her head as she walked through waving fields of grain.
334
With this picture the Mother-episode ended. Although
there is not the slightest trace of any known myth being re
peated, the motifs and the connections between them are all
familiar to us from mythology. These images present themselves
spontaneously and are based on no conscious knowledge what
ever. I have applied the method of active imagination to myself
over a long time and have observed numerous symbols and
symbolic associations which in many cases I was only able to
verify years afterwards in texts of whose existence I was totally
ignorant. It is the same with dreams. Some years ago I dreamed
for example that: I was climbing slowly and toilsomely up a
mountain. When I had reached, as I imagined, the top, I
found that I was standing on the edge of a plateau. The crest
that represented the real top of the mountain only rose far off
in the distance. Night was coming on, and I saw, on the dark
slope opposite, a brook flowing down with a metallic shimmer,
and two paths leading upwards, one to the left, the other to the
right, winding like serpents. On the crest, to the right, there was
a hotel. Down below, the brook ran to the left with a bridge
leading across.
335
Not long afterwards I discovered the following "allegory"
in an obscure alchemical treatise. In his Speculativae philosophiae 11 the Frankfurt physician Gerard Dorn, who lived in the
second half of the sixteenth century, describes the "Mundi
peregrinatio, quam erroris viam appellamus" (Tour of the
world, which we call the way of error) on the one hand and the
"Via veritatis" on the other. Of the first way the author says:
The human race, whose nature it is to resist God, does not cease to
ask how it may, by its own efforts, escape the pitfalls which it has
laid for itself. But it does not ask help from Him on whom alone
depends every gift of mercy. Hence it has come about that men have
built for themselves a great Workshop on the left-hand side of the
road . . . presided over by Industry. After this has been attained,
they turn aside from Industry and bend their steps towards the
11 Theatrum chemicum, I (1602), pp. 286ff.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
second, region of the world, making their crossing on the bridge of
infirmity. . . . But because the good God desires to draw them
back, He allows their infirmities to rule over them; then, seeking as
before a remedy in themselves [industry!], they flock to the great
Hospital likewise built on the left, presided over by Medicine. Here
there is a great multitude of apothecaries, surgeons, and physicians,
[etc.].12
Of the "way of truth/' which is the "right" way, our author
says: ". . . you will come to the camp of Wisdom and on being
received there, you will be refreshed with food far more power
ful than before." Even the brook is there: ". . . a stream of
living water flowing with such wonderful artifice from the
mountain peak. (From the Fountain of Wisdom the waters gush
forth.)" 13
337
An important difference, compared with my dream, is that
here, apart from the situation of the hotel being reversed, the
river of Wisdom is on the right and not, as in my dream, in the
middle of the picture.
338
It is evident that in my dream we are not dealing with any
known "myth" but with a group of ideas which might easily
have been regarded as "individual," i.e., unique. A thorough
analysis, however, could show without difficulty that it is an
archetypal image such as can be reproduced over and over again
in any age and any place. But I must admit that the archetypal
nature of the dream-image only became clear to me when I
read Dorn. These and similar incidents I have observed re
peatedly not only in myself but in my patients. But, as this
336
12 "Humanum genus, cui Deo resistere iam innatum est, non desistit media quaerere, quibus proprio conatu laqueos evadat, quos sibimet posuit, ab eo non petens
auxilium, a quo solo dependet omnis misericordiae munus. Hinc factum est, ut
in sinistram viae partem officinam sibi maximam exstruxerint . . . huic domui
praeest industria, etc. Quod postquam adepti fuerint, ab industria recedentes in
secundam mundi regionem tendunt: per infirmitatis pontem fadentes transitum. . . . At quia bonus Deus retrahere vellet, infirmitates in ipsis dominari
permittit, turn rursus ut prius remedium [industrial] a se quaerentes, ad xenodochium etiam a sinistris constructum et permaximum confluunt, cui medicina
praeest. Ibi pharmacopolarum, chirurgorum et physicorum ingens est copia."
(p. 288.)
13 ". . . pervenietis ad Sophiae castra, quibus excepti, longe vehementiori quam
antea cibo reficiemini. . . , viventis aquae fluvius tam admirando fluens artifirio
de montis apice. (De Sophiae fonte scaturiunt aquael)" [Slightly modified by
Professor Jung. Cf. Dorn, pp. 279-80.—EDITORS.]
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
example shows, it needs special attention if such parallels are
not to be missed.
339
The antique Mother-image is not exhausted with the figure
of Demeter. It also expresses itself in Cybele-Artemis. The next
case points in this direction.
2.
34°
Case Y (dreams)
i. "I am wandering over a great mountain; the way is lonely,
wild, and difficult. A woman comes down from the sky to ac
company and help me. She is all bright with light hair and
shining eyes. Now and then she vanishes. After going on for
some time alone I notice that I have left my stick somewhere,
and must turn back to fetch it. To do this I have to pass a
terrible monster, an enormous bear. When I came this way the
first time I had to pass it, but then the sky-woman protected me.
Just as I am passing the beast and he is about to come at me,
she stands beside me again, and at her look the bear lies down
quietly and lets us pass. Then the sky-woman vanishes."
341
Here we have a maternally protective goddess related to
bears, a kind of Diana or the Gallo-Roman Dea Artio. The
sky-woman is the positive, the bear the negative aspect of the
"supraordinate personality," which extends the conscious hu
man being upwards into the celestial and downwards into the
animal regions.
342
ii. "We go through a door into a tower-like room, where
we climb a long flight of steps. On one of the topmost steps I
read an inscription: 'Vis ut sis.' The steps end in a temple
situated on the crest of a wooded mountain, and there is no
other approach. It is the shrine of Ursanna, the bear-goddess
and Mother of God in one. The temple is of red stone. Bloody
sacrifices are offered there. Animals are standing about the altar.
In order to enter the temple precincts one has to be transformed
into an animal—a beast of the forest. The temple has the form
of a cross with equal arms and a circular space in the middle,
which is not roofed, so that one can look straight up at the sky
and the constellation of the Bear. On the altar in the middle of
the open space there stands the moon-bowl, from which smoke
or vapour continually rises. There is also a huge image of the
goddess, but it cannot be seen clearly. The worshippers, who
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
343
844
345
346
have been changed into animals and to whom I also belong,
have to touch the goddess's foot with their own foot, where
upon the image gives them a sign or an oracular utterance like
'Vis ut sis.' "
In this dream the bear-goddess emerges plainly, although her
statue "cannot be seen clearly." The relationship to the self,
the supraordinate personality, is indicated not only by the oracle
"Vis ut sis" but by the quaternity and the circular central
precinct of the temple. From ancient times any relationship to
the stars has always symbolized eternity. The soul comes "from
the stars" and returns to the stellar regions. "Ursanna's" rela
tion to the moon is indicated by the "moon-bowl."
The moon-goddess also appears in children's dreams. A girl
who grew up in peculiarly difficult psychic circumstances had
a recurrent dream between her seventh and tenth years; "The
moon-lady was always waiting for me down by the water at the
landing-stage, to take me to her island." Unfortunately she
could never remember what happened there, but it was so
beautiful that she often prayed she might have this dream
again. Although, as is evident, the two dreamers are not identi
cal, the island motif also occurred in the previous dream as the
inaccessible mountain crest.
Thirty years later, the dreamer of the moon-lady had a
dramatic fantasy:
" I am clitnbing a steep dark mountain, on top of which
stands a domed castle. I enter and go up a winding stairway to
the left. Arriving inside the dome, I find myself in the presence
of a woman wearing a head-dress of cow's horns. I recognize her
immediately as the moon-lady of my childhood dreams. At her
behest I look to the right and see a dazzlingly bright sun shining
on the other side of a deep chasm. Over the chasm stretches a
narrow, transparent bridge, upon which I step, conscious of the
fact that in no circumstances must I look down. An uncanny
fear seizes me, and I hesitate, Treachery seems to be in the air,
but at last I go across and stand before the sun. The sun speaks:
'If you can approach me nine times without being burned, all
will be well.' But I grow more and more afraid, filially I do
look down, and I see a black tentacle like that of an octopus
groping towards me from underneath the sun. I step back in
fright and plunge into the abyss. But instead of being dashed
196
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
to pieces I lie in the arms of the Earth Mother. When I try to
look into her face, she turns to clay, and I find myself lying on
the earth."
347
It is remarkable how the beginning of this fantasy agrees
with the dream. The moon-lady above is clearly distinguished
from the Earth Mother below. The former urges the dreamer to
her somewhat perilous adventure with the sun; the latter catches
her protectively in her maternal arms. The dreamer, as the one
in danger, would therefore seem to be in the role of the Kore.
34 8
Let us now turn back to our dream-series:
349
iii. Y sees two pictures in a dream, painted by the Scandi
navian painter Hermann Christian Lund.
I. "The first picture is of a Scandinavian peasant room.
Peasant girls in gay costumes are walking about arm in arm
(that is, in a row). The middle one is smaller than the rest and,
besides this, has a hump and keeps turning her head back. This,
together with her peculiar glance, gives her a witchlike look."
II. "The second picture shows a dragon with its neck
stretched out over the whole picture and especially over a girl,
who is in the dragon's power and cannot move, for as soon as she
moves, the dragon, which can make its body big or little at
will, moves too; and when the girl wants to get away it simply
stretches out its neck over her, and so catches her again. Strange
ly enough, the girl has no face, at least I couldn't see it."
35°
The painter is an invention of the dream. The animus often
appears as a painter or has some kind of projection apparatus, or
is a cinema-operator or owner of a picture-gallery. All this refers
to the animus as the function mediating between conscious and
unconscious: the unconscious contains pictures which are trans
mitted, that is, made manifest, by the animus, either as fantasies
or, unconsciously, in the patient's own life and actions. The
animus-projection gives rise to fantasied relations of love and
hatred for "heroes" or "demons." The favourite victims are
tenors, artists, movie-stars, athletic champions, etc. In the first
picture the maiden is characterized as demonic, with a hump
and an evil look "over her shoulder." (Hence amulets against
the evil eye are often worn by primitives on the nape of the
neck, for the vulnerable spot is at the back, where you can't
see.)
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
35»
352
353
354
355
In the second picture the "maiden" is portrayed as the inno
cent victim of the monster. Just as before there was a rela
tionship of identity between the sky-woman and the bear, so
here between the young girl and the dragon—which in practical
life is often rather more than just a bad joke. Here it signifies
a widening of the conscious personality, i.e., through the
helplessness of the victim on the one hand and the dangers of
the humpback's evil eye and the dragon's might on the other.
iv (part dream, part visual imagination). "A magician is
demonstrating his tricks to an Indian prince. He produces a
beautiful young girl from under a cloth. She is a dancer, who
has the power to change her shape or at least hold her audience
spell-bound by faultless illusion. During the dance she dissolves
with the music into a swarm of bees. Then she changes into a
leopard, then into a jet of water, then into an octopus that has
twined itself about a young pearl-fisher. Between times, she
takes human form again at the dramatic moment. She appears
as a she-ass bearing two baskets of wonderful fruits. Then she
becomes a many-coloured peacock. The prince is beside him
self with delight and calls her to him. But she dances on, now
naked, and even tears the skin from her body, and finally falls
down—a naked skeleton. This is buried, but at night a lily grows
out of the grave, and from its cup there rises a white lady, who
floats slowly up to the sky."
This piece describes the successive transformations of the
illusionist (artistry in illusion being a specifically feminine
talent) until she becomes a transfigured personality. The fantasy
was not invented as a sort of allegory; it was part dream, part
spontaneous imagery.
v. "I am in a church made of grey sandstone. The apse is
built rather high. Near the tabernacle a girl in a red dress is
hanging on the stone cross of the window. (Suicide?)"
Just as in the preceding cases the sacrifice of a child or a
sheep played a part, so here the sacrifice of the maiden hanging
on the "cross." The death of the dancer is also to be understood
in this sense, for these maidens are always doomed to die, be
cause their exclusive domination of the feminine psyche hinders
the individuation process, that is, the maturation of personality.
The "maiden" corresponds to the anima of the man and makes
use of it to gain her natural ends, in which illusion plays the
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
greatest role imaginable. But as long as a woman is content to
be a femme ά homme, she has no feminine individuality. She
is empty and merely glitters—a welcome vessel for masculine
projections. Woman as a personality, however, is a very different
thing: here illusion no longer works. So that when the question
of personality arises, which is as a rule the painful fact of the
second half of life, the childish form of the self disappears too.
356
All that remains for me now is to describe the Kore as ob
servable in man, the anima. Since a man's wholeness, in so far
as he is not constitutionally homosexual, can only be a mascu
line personality, the feminine figure of the anima cannot be
catalogued as a type of supraordinate personality but requires
a different evaluation and position. In the products of uncon
scious activity, the anima appears equally as maiden and mother,
which is why a personalistic interpretation always reduces her
to the personal mother or some other female person. The real
meaning of the figure naturally gets lost in the process, as is
inevitably the case with all these reductive interpretations
whether in the sphere of the psychology of the unconscious or
of mythology. The innumerable attempts that have been made
in the sphere of mythology to interpret gods and heroes in a
solar, lunar, astral, or meteorological sense contribute nothing
of importance to the understanding of them; on the contrary,
they all put us on a false track. When, therefore, in dreams and
other spontaneous products, we meet with an unknown female
figure whose significance oscillates between the extremes of
goddess and whore, it is advisable to let her keep her inde
pendence and not reduce her arbitrarily to something known.
If the unconscious shows her as an "unknown," this attribute
should not be got rid of by main force with a view to arriving at
a "rational" interpretation. Like the "supraordinate person
ality," the anima is bipolar and can therefore appear positive
one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now
mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a
saint, now a whore. Besides this ambivalence, the anima also
has "occult" connections with "mysteries," with the world of
darkness in general, and for that reason she often has a religious
tinge. Whenever she emerges with some degree of clarity, she
always has a peculiar relationship to time: as a rule she is more
or less immortal, because outside time. Writers who have tried
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
their hand at this figure have never failed to stress the anima's
peculiarity in this respect, I would refer to the classic descrip
tions in Rider Haggard's She and The Return of She, in Pierre
Benoit's L'Atlantide, and above all in the novel of the young
American author, William M. Sloane, To Walk the Night. In
all these accounts, the anima is outside time as we know it and
consequently immensely old or a being who belongs to a dif
ferent order of things.
357
Since we can no longer or only partially express the arche
types of the unconscious by means of figures in which we
religiously believe, they lapse into unconsciousness again and
hence are unconsciously projected upon more or less suitable hu
man personalities. To the young boy a clearly discernible anima-form appears in his mother, and this lends her the radiance
of power and superiority or else a daemonic aura of even greater
fascination. But because of the anima's ambivalence, the pro
jection can be entirely negative. Much of the fear which the
female sex arouses in men is due to the projection of the
anima-image. An infantile man generally has a maternal anima;
an adult man, the figure of a younger woman. The senile man
finds compensation in a very young girl, or even a child.
[3. Case Z]
The anima also has affinities with animals, which symbolize
her characteristics. Thus she can appear as a snake or a tiger or
a bird. I quote by way of example a dream-series that contains
transformations of this kind: 14
359
i. A white bird perches on a table, Suddeitly it changes into
a fair-haired seven-year-old girl and just as suddenly back into a
bird, which now speaks with a human voice.
36°
ii. In an underground house, which is really the under
world, there lives an old magician and prophet with his "daugh
ter." She is, however, not really his daughter; she is a dancer,
a very loose person, but is blind and seeks healing.
61
3
iii. A lonely house in a wood, where an old scholar is living.
Suddenly his daughter appears, a kind of ghost, complaining
that people only look upon her as a figment of fancy.
35 8
14 Only extracts from the dreams are given, so far as they bear on the anima.
200
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
362
iv. On the fafade of a church there is a Gothic Madonna,
who is alive and is the "unknown and yet known woman." In
stead of a child, she holds in her arms a sort of flame or a snake
or a dragon.
363
v. A black-clad "countess" kneels in a dark chapel. Her
dress is hung with costly pearls. She has red hair, and there is
something uncanny about her. Moreover, she is surrounded by
the spirits of the dead.
364
vi. A female snake comports herself tenderly and insinuat
ingly, speaking with a human voice. She is only "accidentally"
shaped like a snake.
365
vii. A bird speaks with the same voice, but shows herself
helpful by trying to rescue the dreamer from a dangerous situa
tion.
3 66
viii. The unknown woman sits, like the dreamer, on the tip
of a church-spire and stares at him uncannily across the abyss.
367
ix. Theunknownwomansuddenlyappearsasanoldfemale
attendant in an underground public lavatory with a tempera
ture of 40 0 below zero.
368
x. The unknown woman leaves the house as a petite bourgeoise with a female relation, and in her place there is suddenly
an over-life-size goddess clad in blue, looking like Athene.
3¾
xi. Then she appears in a church, taking the place of the
altar, still over-life-size but with veiled face.
37°
In all these dreams 15 the central figure is a mysterious femi
nine being with qualities like those of no woman known to the
dreamer. The unknown is described as such in the dreams
themselves, and reveals her extraordinary nature firstly by her
power to change shape and secondly by her paradoxical ambiva
lence. Every conceivable shade of meaning glitters in her, from
the highest to the lowest.
371
Dream i shows the anima as elflike, i.e., only partially human.
She can just as well be a bird, which means that she may belong
wholly to nature and can vanish (i.e., become unconscious) from
the human sphere (i.e., consciousness).
372
Dream ii shows the unknown woman as a mythological fig
ure from the beyond (the unconscious). She is the soror or filia
mystica of a hierophant or "philosopher," evidently a parallel to
!5 The following statements are not meant as "interpretations" of the dreams.
They are intended only to sum up the various forms in which the anima appears.
201
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
those mystic syzygies which are to be met with in the figures of
Simon Magus and Helen, Zosimus and Theosebeia, Comarius
and Cleopatra, etc. Our dream-figure fits in best with Helen.
A really admirable description of anima-psychology in a wom
an is to be found in Erskine's Helen of Troy.
373
Dream Ui presents the same theme, but on a more "fairytale
like" plane. Here the anima is shown as rather spookish.
374
Dream iv brings the anima nearer to the Mother of God.
The "child" refers to the mystic speculations on the subject of
the redemptive serpent and the "fiery" nature of the redeemer.
375
In dream v , the anima is visualized somewhat romantically
as the "distinguished" fascinating woman, who nevertheless has
dealings with spirits.
376
Dreams vi and vii bring theriomorphic variations. The
anima's identity is at once apparent to the dreamer because of
the voice and what it says. The anima has "accidentally" taken
the form of a snake, just as in dream i she changed with the
greatest ease into a bird and back again. As a snake, she is play
ing the negative role, as a bird the positive.
377
Dream viii shows the dreamer confronted with his anima.
This takes place high above the ground (i.e., above human real
ity). Obviously it is a case of dangerous fascination by the anima.
378
Dream ix signifies the anima's deep plunge into an extremely
"subordinate" position, where the last trace of fascination has
gone and only human sympathy is left.
379
Dream χ shows the paradoxical double nature of the anima:
banal mediocrity and Olympian divinity.
380
Dream xi restores the anima to the Christian church, not as
an icon but as the altar itself. The altar is the place of sacrifice
and also the receptacle for consecrated relics.
Sl
3
To throw even a moderate light on all these anima associa
tions would require special and very extensive investigation,
which would be out of place here because, as we have already
said, the anima has only an indirect bearing on the interpreta
tion of the Kore figure. I have presented this dream-series sim
ply for the purpose of giving the reader some idea of the empiri
cal material on which the idea of the anima is based.16 From
this series and others like it we get an average picture of that
strange factor which has such an important part to play in the
ie Cf. the third paper in this volume.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE KORE
masculine psyche, and which naive presumption invariably
identifies with certain women, imputing to them all the illu
sions that swarm in the male Eros.
382
It seems clear enough that the man's anima found occasion
for projection in the Demeter cult. The Kore doomed to her
subterranean fate, the two-faced mother, and the theriomorphic
aspects of both afforded the anima ample opportunity to reflect
herself, shimmering and equivocal, in the Eleusinian cult, or
rather to experience herself there and fill the celebrants with
her unearthly essence, to their lasting gain. For a man, anima
experiences are always of immense and abiding significance.
383
But the Demeter-Kore myth is far too feminine to have been
merely the result of an anima-projection. Although the anima
can, as we have said, experience herself in Demeter-Kore, she
is yet of a wholly different nature. She is in the highest degree
femme a homme, whereas Demeter-Kore exists on the plane of
mother-daughter experience, which is alien to man and shuts
him out. In fact, the psychology of the Demeter cult bears all
the features of a matriarchal order of society, where the man is
an indispensable but on the whole disturbing factor.
V
THE PHENOMENOLOGY
OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT
IN FAIRYTALES1
384
One of the unbreakable rules in scientific research is to take
an object as known only so far as the inquirer is in a position to
make scientifically valid statements about it. "Valid" in this
sense simply means what can be verified by facts. The object of
inquiry is the natural phenomenon. Now in psychology, one of
the most important phenomena is the statement, and in partic
ular its form and content, the latter aspect being perhaps the
more significant with regard to the nature of the psyche. The
first task that ordinarily presents itself is the description and
arrangement of events, then comes the closer examination into
the laws of their living behaviour. To inquire into the substance
of what has been observed is possible in natural science only
where there is an Archimedean point outside. For the psyche,
no such outside standpoint exists—only the psyche can observe
the psyche. Consequently, knowledge of the psychic substance
is impossible for us, at least with the means at present available.
This does not rule out the possibility that the atomic physics
of the future may supply us with the said Archimedean point.
For the time being, however, our subtlest lucubrations can es
tablish no more than is expressed in the statement: this is how
the psyche behaves. The honest investigator will piously refrain
from meddling with questions of substance. I do not think it
superfluous to acquaint my reader with the necessary limitations
that psychology voluntarily imposes on itself, for he will then
be in a position to appreciate the phenomenological standpoint
of modern psychology, which is not always understood. This
1 [First
published as a lecture, "Zur Psychologie des Geistes," in the Eranos-Jahrbuch ιρ4β. Revised and published as "Zur Phanomenologie des Geistes im
Marchen," in Symbolik des Geistes (Zurich,
1948),
from which the present transla
tion was made. This translation was published in a slightly different form in
Spirit and Nature (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, 1; New York, 1953; London,
1954).—EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
standpoint does not exclude the existence of faith, conviction,
and experienced certainties of whatever description, nor does
it contest their possible validity. Great as is their importance for
the individual and for collective life, psychology completely
lacks the means to prove their validity in the scientific sense.
One may lament this incapacity on the part of science, but that
does not enable it to jump over its own shadow.
I. CONCERNING THE WORD 'SPIRIT*
3¾
The word "spirit" possesses such a wide range of application
that it requires considerable effort to make clear to oneself all
the things it can mean. Spirit, we say, is the principle that stands
in opposition to matter. By this we understand an immaterial
substance or form of existence which on the highest and most
universal level is called "God." We imagine this immaterial sub
stance also as the vehicle of psychic phenomena or even of life
itself. In contradiction to this view there stands the antithesis:
spirit and nature. Here the concept of spirit is restricted to the
supernatural or anti-natural, and has lost its substantial connec
tion with psyche and life. A similar restriction is implied in
Spinoza's view that spirit is an attribute of the One Substance.
Hylozoism goes even further, taking spirit to be a quality of
matter.
386
A very widespread view conceives spirit as a higher and
psyche as a lower principle of activity, and conversely the alche
mists thought of spirit as the ligamentum, animae et corporis,
obviously regarding it as a spiritus vegetativus (the later lifespirit or nerve-spirit). Equally common is the view that spirit
and psyche are essentially the same and can be separated only
arbitrarily. Wundt takes spirit as "the inner being, regardless
of any connection with an outer being." Others restrict spirit
to certain psychic capacities or functions or qualities, such as the
capacity to think and reason in contradistinction to the more
"soulful" sentiments. Here spirit means the sum-total of all the
phenomena of rational thought, or of the intellect, including
the will, memory, imagination, creative power, and aspira
tions motivated by ideals. Spirit has the further connotation of
sprightliness, as when we say that a person is "spirited," mean208
THE PHENOMENOL-JGi
387
388
υΙ· THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
ing that he is versatile and full of ideas, with a brilliant, witty,
and svirprising turn of mind. Again, spirit denotes a certain
attitude or the principle underlying it, for instance, one is
"educated in the spirit of Pestalozzi," or one says that the "spirit
of Weimar is the immortal German heritage." A special instance
is the time-spirit, or spirit of the age, which stands for the prin
ciple and motive force behind certain views, judgments, and
actions of a collective nature. Then there is the "objective spir
it," 2 by which is meant the whole stock of man's cultural pos
sessions with particular regard to his intellectual and religious
achievements.
As linguistic usage shows, spirit in the sense of an attitude
has unmistakable leanings towards personification: the spirit of
Pestalozzi can also be taken concretistically as his ghost or imago,
just as the spirits of Weimar are the personal spectres of Goethe
and Schiller; for spirit still has the spookish meaning of the
soul of one departed. The "cold breath of the spirits" points on
the one hand to the ancient affinity of ψυχή with ψυχρός and ψύχος,
which both mean 'cold,' and on the other hand to the original
meaning of πνεύμα, which simply denoted 'air in motion'; and
in the same way animus and anima were connected with άνΐμο-s,
'wind.' The German word Geist probably has more to do with
something frothing, effervescing, or fermenting; hence affinities
with Gischt (foam), Gascht (yeast), ghost, and also with the emo
tional ghastly and aghast, are not to be rejected. From time im
memorial emotion has been regarded as possession, which is why
we still say today, of a hot-tempered person, that he is possessed
of a devil or that an evil spirit has entered into him. 3 Just as,
according to the old view, the spirits or souls of the dead are
of a subtle disposition like a vapour or a smoke, so to the alche
mist spiritus was a subtle, volatile, active, and vivifying essence,
such as alcohol was understood to be, and all the arcane sub
stances. On this level, spirit includes spirits of salts, spirits of
ammonia, formic spirit, etc.
This score or so of meanings and shades of meaning attribut
able to the word "spirit" make it difficult for the psychologist
to delimit his subject conceptually, but on the other hand they
lighten the task of describing it, since the many different aspects
2 [An Hegelian term, roughly equivalent to our "spirit of man."—TRANS.]
See my "Spirit and Life."
8
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
go to form a vivid and concrete picture of the phenomenon in
question. We are concerned with a functional complex which
originally, on the primitive level, was felt as an invisible, breath
like "presence." William James has given us a lively account
of this primordial phenomenon in his Varieties of Religious
Experience. Another well-known example is the wind of the
Pentecostal miracle. The primitive mentality finds it quite nat
ural to personify the invisible presence as a ghost or demon.
The souls or spirits of the dead are identical with the psychic
activity of the living; they merely continue it. The view that
the psyche is a spirit is implicit in this. When therefore some
thing psychic happens in the individual which he feels as belong
ing to himself, that something is his own spirit. But if anything
psychic happens which seems to him strange, then it is some
body else's spirit, and it may be causing a possession. The spirit
in the first case corresponds to the subjective attitude, in the
latter case to public opinion, to the time-spirit, or to the origi
nal, not yet human, anthropoid disposition which we also call
the unconscious.
389
In keeping with its original wind-nature, spirit is always an
active, winged, swift-moving being as well as that which vivifies,
stimulates, incites, fires, and inspires. To put it in modern lan
guage, spirit is the dynamic principle, forming for that very
reason the classical antithesis of matter—the antithesis, that is,
of its stasis and inertia. Basically it is the contrast between life
and death The subsequent differentiation of this contrast leads
to the actually very remarkable opposition of spirit and nature.
Even though spirit is regarded as essentially alive and enliven
ing, one cannot really feel nature as unspiritual and dead. We
must therefore be dealing here with the (Christian) postulate
of a spirit whose life is so vastly superior to the life of nature
that in comparison with it the latter is no better than death.
39»
This special development in man's idea of spirit rests on the
recognition that its invisible presence is a psychic phenomenon,
i.e., one's own spirit, and that this consists not only of uprushes
of life but of formal products too. Among the first, the most
prominent are the images and shadowy presentations that oc
cupy our inner field of vision; among the second, thinking and
reason, which organize the world of images. In this way a tran210
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
scendent spirit superimposed itself upon the original, natural
life-spirit and even swung over to the opposite position, as
though the latter were merely naturalistic. The transcendent
spirit became the supranatural and transmundane cosmic prin
ciple of order and as such was given the name of "God," or at
least it became an attribute of the One Substance (as in Spinoza)
or one Person of the Godhead (as in Christianity).
39'
The corresponding development of spirit in the reverse,
hylozoistic direction—α maiori ad minus—took place under antiChristian auspices in materialism. The premise underlying this
reaction is the exclusive certainty of the spirit's identity with
psychic functions, whose dependence upon brain and metabo
lism became increasingly clear. One had only to give the One
Substance another name and call it "matter" to produce the
idea of a spirit which was entirely dependent on nutrition and
environment, and whose highest form was the intellect or rea
son. This meant that the original pneumatic presence had taken
up its abode in man's physiology, and a writer like Klages could
arraign the spirit as the "adversary of the soul." 4 For it was into
this latter concept that the original spontaneity of the spirit
withdrew after it had been degraded to a servile attribute of
matter. Somewhere or other the deus ex machina quality of
spirit had to be preserved—if not in the spirit itself, then in its
synonym the soul, that glancing, Aeolian 5 thing, elusive as a
butterfly (anima, ψυχή).
39^
Even though the materialistic conception of the spirit did
not prevail everywhere, it still persisted, outside the sphere of
religion, in the realm of conscious phenomena. Spirit as "sub
jective spirit" came to mean a purely endopsychic phenomenon,
while "objective spirit" did not mean the universal spirit, or
God, but merely the sum total of intellectual and cultural pos
sessions which make up our human institutions and the content
of our libraries. Spirit had forfeited its original nature, its
autonomy and spontaneity over a very wide area, with the
solitary exception of the religious field, where, at least in prin
ciple, its pristine character remained unimpaired.
4 Ludwig KJages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele.
SSoul, from Old German saiwal6, may be cognate with al6\os, 'quick-moving,
changeful of hue, shifting.' It also has the meaning of 'wily' or 'shifty"; hence an
air of probability attaches to the alchemical definition of anima as Mercurius.
211
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
393
In this resume we have described an entity which presents
itself to us as an immediate psychic phenomenon distinguished
from other psychisms whose existence is naively believed to be
causally dependent upon physical influences. A connection be
tween spirit and physical conditions is not immediately ap
parent, and for this reason it was credited with immateriality
to a much higher degree than was the case with psychic phenom
ena in the narrower sense. Not only is a certain physical depend
ence attributed to the latter, but they are themselves thought
of as possessing a kind of materiality, as the idea of the subtle
body and the Chinese Auez-soul clearly show. In view of the
intimate connection that exists between certain psychic proc
esses and their physical parallels we cannot very well accept the
total immateriality of the psyche. As against this, the consensus
omnium insists on the immateriality of spirit, though not every
one would agree that it also has a reality of its own. It is, how
ever, not easy to see why our hypothetical "matter," which looks
quite different from what it did even thirty years ago, alone
should be real, and spirit not. Although the idea of immateri
ality does not in itself exclude that of reality, popular opinion
invariably associates reality with materiality. Spirit and matter
may well be forms of one and the same transcendental being.
For instance the Tantrists, with as much right, say that matter
is nothing other than the concreteness of God's thoughts. The
sole immediate reality is the psychic reality of conscious con
tents, which are as it were labelled with a spiritual or material
origin as the case may be.
The hallmarks of spirit are, firstly, the principle of sponta
neous movement and activity; secondly, the spontaneous ca
pacity to produce images independently of sense perception;
and thirdly, the autonomous and sovereign manipulation of
these images. This spiritual entity approaches primitive man
from outside; but with increasing development it gets lodged
in man's consciousness and becomes a subordinate function,
thus apparently forfeiting its original character of autonomy.
That character is now retained only in the most conservative
views, namely in the religions. The descent of spirit into the
sphere of human consciousness is expressed in the myth of the
divine νοϋς caught in the embrace of φύσις. This process, con212
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
394
tinuing over the ages, is probably an unavoidable necessity,
and the religions would find themselves in a very forlorn situa
tion if they believed in the attempt to hold up evolution. Their
task, if they are well advised, is not to impede the ineluctable
march of events, but to guide it in such a way that it can proceed
without fatal injury to the soul. The religions should therefore
constantly recall to us the origin and original character of the
spirit, lest man should forget what he is drawing into himself
and with what he is filling his consciousness. He himself did not
create the spirit, rather the spirit makes him creative, always
spurring him on, giving him lucky ideas, staying power, "en
thusiasm" and "inspiration." So much, indeed, does it permeate
his whole being that he is in gravest danger of thinking that
he actually created the spirit and that he "has" it. In reality,
however, the primordial phenomenon of the spirit takes posses
sion of him, and, while appearing to be the willing object of
human intentions, it binds his freedom, just as the physical
world does, with a thousand chains and becomes an obsessive
idee-force. Spirit threatens the na'ive-minded man with inflation,
of which our own times have given us the most horribly instruc
tive examples. The danger becomes all the greater the more
our interest fastens upon external objects and the more we for
get that the differentiation of our relation to nature should go
hand in hand with a correspondingly differentiated relation to
the spirit, so as to establish the necessary balance. If the outer
object is not offset by an inner, unbridled materialism results,
coupled with maniacal arrogance or else the extinction of the
autonomous personality, which is in any case the ideal of the
totalitarian mass state.
As can readily be seen, the common modern idea of spirit ill
accords with the Christian view, which regards it as the summum bonum, as God himself. To be sure, there is also the idea
of an evil spirit. But the modern idea cannot be equated with
that either, since for us spirit is not necessarily evil; we would
have to call it morally indifferent or neutral. When the Bible
says "God is spirit," it sounds more like the definition of a
substance, or like a qualification. But the devil too, it seems,
is endowed with the same peculiar spiritual substance, albeit
an evil and corrupt one. The original identity of substance is
213
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
395
still expressed in the idea of the fallen angel, as well as in the
close connection between Jehovah and Satan in the Old Testa
ment. There may be an echo of this primitive connection in the
Lord's Prayer, where we say "Lead us not into temptation"—
for is not this really the business of the tempter, the devil him
self?
This brings us to a point we have not considered at all in the
course of our observations so far. We have availed ourselves of
cultural and everyday conceptions which are the product of
human consciousness and its reflections, in order to form a pic
ture of the psychic modes of manifestation of the factor "spirit."
But we have yet to consider that because of its original autono
my, 6 about which there can be no doubt in the psychological
sense, the spirit is quite capable of staging its own manifesta
tions spontaneously.
II. SELF-REPRESENTATION OF THE SPIRIT IN DREAMS
396
The psychic manifestations of the spirit indicate at once that
they are of an archetypal nature—in other words, the phenome
non we call spirit depends on the existence of an autonomous
primordial image which is universally present in the preconscious makeup of the human psyche. As usual, I first came up
against this problem when investigating the dreams of my pa
tients. It struck me that a certain kind of father-complex has a
"spiritual" character, so to speak, in the sense that the fatherimage gives rise to statements, actions, tendencies, impulses,
opinions, etc., to which one could hardly deny the attribute
"spiritual." In men, a positive father-complex very often pro
duces a certain credulity with regard to authority and a distinct
willingness to bow down before all spiritual dogmas and values;
while in women, it induces the liveliest spiritual aspirations and
interests. In dreams, it is always the father-figure from whom
the decisive convictions, prohibitions, and wise counsels emaβ Even if one accepts the view that a self-revelation of spirit—an apparition for
instance—is nothing but an hallucination, the fact remains that this is a spon
taneous psychic event not subject to our control. At any rate it is an autonomous
complex, and that is quite sufficient for our purpose.
214
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
nate. The invisibility of this source is frequently emphasized by
the fact that it consists simply of an authoritative voice which
passes final judgments. 7 Mostly, therefore, it is the figure of a
"wise old man" who symbolizes the spiritual factor. Sometimes
the part is played by a "real" spirit, namely the ghost of one
dead, or, more rarely, by grotesque gnomelike figures or talking
animals. The dwarf forms are found, at least in my experience,
mainly in women; hence it seems to me logical that in Ernst
Barlach's play Der tote Tag (1912), the gnomelike figure of
Steissbart ("Rumpbeard") is associated with the mother, just as
Bes is associated with the mother-goddess at Karnak. In both
sexes the spirit can also take the form of a boy or a youth. In
women he corresponds to the so-called "positive" animus who
indicates the possibility of conscious spiritual effort. In men his
meaning is not so simple. He can be positive, in which case he
signifies the "higher" personality, the self or filius regius as con
ceived by the alchemists. 8 But he can also be negative, and then
he signifies the infantile shadow.® In both cases the boy means
some form of spirit. 10 Graybeard and boy belong together. The
pair of them play a considerable role in alchemy as symbols of
Mercurius.
397
It can never be established with one-hundred-per-cent cer
tainty whether the spirit-figures in dreams are morally good.
Very often they show all the signs of duplicity, if not of outright
malice. I must emphasize, however, that the grand plan on
which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so
inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what
evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil. Some
times the probate spiritus recommended by John cannot, with
the best will in the world, be anything other than a cautious
and patient waiting to see how things will finally turn out.
398
The figure of the wise old man can appear so plastically, not
only in dreams but also in visionary meditation (or what we call
T Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 115.
8 Cf. the vision of the "naked boy" in Meister Eckhart (trans, by Evans, I, p. 438).
9 I would remind the reader of the "boys" in Bruno Goetz's novel Das Reich ohne
Raum.
10 Cf. the paper on the "Child Archetype" in this volume, pars. 268L
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
"active imagination"), that, as is sometimes apparently the case
in India, it takes over the role of a guru. 11 The wise old man
appears in dreams in the guise of a magician, doctor, priest,
teacher, professor, grandfather, or any other person possessing
authority. The archetype of spirit in the shape of a man, hob
goblin, or animal always appears in a situation where insight,
understanding, good advice, determination, planning, etc., are
needed but cannot be mustered on one's own resources. The
archetype compensates this state of spiritual deficiency by con
tents designed to fill the gap. An excellent example of this is
the dream about the white and black magicians, which tried to
compensate the spiritual difficulties of a young theological stu
dent. I did not know the dreamer myself, so the question of my
personal influence is ruled out. He dreamed he was standing in
the presence of a sublime hieratic figure called the "white magi
cian/' who was nevertheless clothed in a long black robe. This
magician had just ended a lengthy discourse with the words
"And for that we require the help of the black magician." Then
the door suddenly opened and another old man came in, the
"black magician," who however was dressed in a white robe. He
too looked noble and sublime. The black magician evidently
wanted to speak with the white, but hesitated to do so in the
presence of the dreamer. At that the white magician, pointing
to the dreamer, said, "Speak, he is an innocent." So the black
magician began to relate a strange story of how he had found
the lost keys of Paradise and did not know how to use them. He
had, he said, come to the white magician for an explanation of
the secret of the keys. He told him that the king of the country
in which he lived was seeking a suitable tomb for himself. His
subjects had chanced to dig up an old sarcophagus containing
the mortal remains of a virgin. The king opened the sarcopha
gus, threw aivay the bones, and had the empty sarcophagus
buried again for later use. But no sooner had the bones seen
the light of day than the being to whom they once had belonged
11 Hence the many miraculous stories about rishis and mahatnias. Λ cultured
Indian with whom I once conversed tin the subject of gurus told me. when I asked
him who his guru had been, that it was Shankaracharya (who lived iti the 8th and
gth cents.) "But that's the celebrated commentator," I remarked in amazement.
Whereupon he replied, "Yes, so he was; but naturally it was his spirit," not in the
least perturbed by my Western bewilderment.
2l6
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
399
—the virgin—changed into a black horse that galloped off into
the desert. The black magician pursued it across the sandy
wastes and beyond, and there after many vicissitudes and dif
ficulties he found the lost keys of Paradise. That was the end of
his story, and also, unfortunately, of the dream.
Here the compensation certainly did not fall out as the
dreamer would wish, by handing him a solution on a plate;
rather it confronted him with a problem to which I have already
alluded, and one which life is always bringing us up against:
namely, the uncertainty of all moral valuation, the bewildering
interplay of good and evil, and the remorseless concatenation of
guilt, suffering, and redemption. This path to the primordial
religious experience is the right one, but how many can recog
nize it? It is like a still small voice, and it sounds from afar. It
is ambiguous, questionable, dark, presaging danger and haz
ardous adventure; a razor-edged path, to be trodden for God's
sake only, without assurance and without sanction.
III. THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
400
4 01
ι would gladly present the reader with some more modern
dream-material, but I fear that the individualism of dreams
would make too high a demand upon our exposition and would
claim more space than is here at our disposal. We shall there
fore turn to folklore, where we need not get involved in the
grim confrontations and entanglements of individual case his
tories and can observe the variations of the spirit motif without
having to consider conditions that are more or less unique. In
myths and fairytales, as in dreams, the psyche tells its own story,
and the interplay of the archetypes is revealed in its natural set
ting as "formation, transformation / the eternal Mind's eternal
recreation."
The frequency with which the spirit-type appears as an old
man is about the same in fairytales as in dreams. 12 The old man
always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate
situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea
—in other words, a spiritual function or an endopsychic autom12 I am indebted to Mrs. H. von Roques and Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz for the
fairytale material used here.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
atism of some kind—can extricate him. But since, for internal
and external reasons, the hero cannot accomplish this himself,
the knowledge needed to compensate the deficiency comes in
the form of a personified thought, i.e., in the shape of this
sagacious and helpful old man. An Estonian fairytale, 13 for
instance, tells how an ill-treated little orphan boy who had let
a coAv escape was afraid to return home again for fear of more
punishment. So he ran away, chancing to luck. He naturally got
himself into a hopeless situation, with no visible way out. Ex
hausted, he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, "it seemed
to him that he had something liquid in his mouth, and he saw
a little old man with a long grey beard standing before him, who
was in the act of replacing the stopper in his little milk-flask.
'Give me some more to drink,' begged the boy. "You have had
enough for today,' replied the old man. 'If my path had not
chanced to lead me to you, that would assuredly have been your
last sleep, for when I found you, you were half dead.' Then the
old man asked the boy who he was and where he wanted to go.
The boy recounted everything he could remember happening
to him up to the beating he had received the previous evening.
'My dear child,' said the old man, 'you are no better and no
worse off than many others whose dear protectors and com
forters rest in their coffins under the earth. You can no longer
turn back. Now that you have run away, you must seek a new
fortune in the world. As I have neither house nor home, nor
wife nor child, I cannot take further care of you, but I will
give you some good advice for nothing.' "
So far the old man has been expressing no more than what
the boy, the hero of the tale, could have thought out for him
self. Having given way to the stress of emotion and simply run
off like that into the blue, he would at least have had to reflect
that he needed food. It would also have been necessary, at such
a moment, to consider his position. The whole story of his life
up to the recent past would then have passed before his mind,
as is usual in such cases. An anamnesis of this kind is a purpose13 F i n n i s c h e u n d e s t n i s c h e V o l k s m a r c h e n , No.
68,
p.
208
["How an Orphan Boy
Unexpectedly Found His Luck"]. [All German colleciions of tales here cited are
listed under "Folktales" in the bibliography, q.v. English titles of tales are given
in brackets, though no attempt has been made to locate published translations.
—EDITORS.]
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
4°3
ful process whose aim is to gather the assets of the whole per
sonality together at the critical moment, when all one's sp : ritual
and physical forces are challenged, and w th th's united strength
to fling open the door of the future. No one can help the boy
to do this; he has to rely entirely on himself. There is no going
back. This realization will give the necessary resolution to his
actions. By forcing him to face the issue, the old man saves
him the trouble of making up his mind. Indeed the old man is
himself this purposeful reflection and concentration of moral
and physical forces that comes about spontaneously in the psy
chic space outside consciousness when conscious thought is not
yet—or is no longer—possible. The concentration and tension of
psychic forces have something about them that always looks like
magic: they develop an unexpected power of endurance which
is often superior to the conscious effort of will. One can observe
this experimentally in the artificial concentration induced by
hypnosis: in my demonstrations I used regularly to put an
hysteric, of weak bodily build, into a deep hypnotic sleep and
then get her to lie with the back of her head on one chair and
her heels resting on another, stiff as a board, and leave her there
for about a minute. Her pulse would gradually go up to 90. A
husky young athlete among the students tried in vain to imitate
this feat with a conscious effort of will. He collapsed in the mid
dle with his pulse racing at 120.
When the clever old man had brought the boy to this point
he could begin his good advice, i.e., the situation no longer
looked hopeless. He advised him to continue his wanderings, al
ways to the eastward, where after seven years he would reach the
great mountain that betokened his good fortune. The bigness
and tallness of the mountain are allusions to his adult person
ality. 14 Concentration of his powers brings assurance and is
therefore the best guarantee of success. 15 From now on he will
14
The mountain stands for the goal of the pilgrimage and ascent, hence it often
has the psychological meaning of the self. The 1 Ching describes the goal thus:
"The king introduces him / To the Western Mountain" (Wilhelm/Baynes trans.,
>967. p- 74—Hexagram 17, Sui, "Following"). Cf. Honorius of Autun (Expositio
in Cantica canticorum, col. 389): "The mountains are prophets." Richard of St.
Victor says: "Vis videre Christum transfiguratum? Ascende in montem istum, disce
cognoscere te ipsum" (Do you wish to see the transfigured Christ? Ascend that
mountain and learn to know yourself). (Benjamin minor, cols. 53-56.)
15
In this respect we would call attention to the phenomenology of yoga.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
lack for nothing. "Take my scrip and my flask," says the old
man, "and each day you will find in them all the food and drink
you need." At the same time he gave him a burdock leaf that
could change into a boat whenever the boy had to cross water.
4°4
Often the old man in fairytales asks questions like who? why?
whence? and whither? 16 for the purpose of inducing self-reflec
tion and mobilizing the moral forces, and more often still he
gives the necessary magical talisman, 17 the unexpected and im
probable power to succeed, which is one of the peculiarities
of the unified personality in good or bad alike. But the in
tervention of the old man—the spontaneous objectivation of
the archetype—would seem to be equally indispensable, since
the conscious will by itself is hardly ever capable of uniting the
personality to the point where it acquires this extraordinary
power to succeed. For that, not only in fairytales but in life
generally, the objective intervention of the archetype is needed,
which checks the purely affective reactions with a chain of inner
confrontations and realizations. These cause the who? where?
how? why? to emerge clearly and in this wise bring knowledge
of the immediate situation as well as of the goal. The resultant
enlightenment and untying of the fatal tangle often has some
thing positively magical about it—an experience not unknown
to the psychotherapist.
4°5
The tendency of the old man to set one thinking also takes
the form of urging people to "sleep on it." Thus he says to
the girl who is searching for her lost brothers: "Lie down:
ie There are numerous examples of this: Spanische und Portugiesische Volks
marchen, pp. 158, 199 ["The White Parrot" and "Queen Rose, or Little Tom"];
Russische Volksmarchen, p. 149 ["The Girl with No Hands"]: Balkanmiirchen,
p. 64 ["The Shepherd and the Three Samovilas (Nymphs)"]; Marchen aus Iran,
pp. i5oflr. ["The Secret of the Bath of Windburg"]; Nordisehe Volksmarchen, I,
p. 231 ["The Werewolf"].
it To the girl looking for her brothers he gives a ball of thread that rolls towards
them (Finnische und Estnische Volksmarchen, p. 260 ["The Contending
Brothers"]). The prince who is searching for the kingdom of heaven is given a
boat that goes by itself (Deutsche Marehen seit Grimm, pp. 381 f. ["The Iron
Boots"]). Other gifts are a flute that sets everybody dancing (Balkanmarehen,
p. 173 ["The Twelve Crumbs"]), or the path-finding ball, the staff of invisibility
(Nordisehe Volksmarchen, I, p. 97 ["The Princess with Twelve Pairs of Golden
Shoes"]), miraculous dogs (ibid., p. 287 ["The Three Dogs"]), or a book of secret
wisdom (Chinesische Volksmarchen, p. 258 ["Jang Liang"]).
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
morning is cleverer than evening." 18 He also sees through the
gloomy situation of the hero who has got himself into trouble,
or at least can give him such information as will help him on
his journey. To this end he makes ready use of animals, partic
ularly birds. To the prince who has gone in search of the
kingdom of heaven the old hermit says: "I have lived here for
three hundred years, but never yet has anybody asked me about
the kingdom of heaven. I cannot tell you myself; but up there,
on another floor of the house, live all kinds of birds, and they
can surely tell you." 19 The old man knows what roads lead to
the goal and points them out to the hero. 20 He warns of dangers
to come and supplies the means of meeting them effectively. For
instance, he tells the boy who has gone to fetch the silver water
that the well is guarded by a lion who has the deceptive trick
of sleeping with his eyes open and watching with his eyes shut; 21
or he counsels the youth who is riding to a magic fountain in
order to fetch the healing draught for the king, only to draw the
water at a trot because of the lurking witches who lasso every
body that comes to the fountain. 22 He charges the princess
whose lover has been changed into a werewolf to make a fire and
put a cauldron of tar over it. Then she must plunge her beloved
white lily into the boiling tar, and when the werewolf comes,
she must empty the cauldron over its head, which will release
her lover from the spell. 23 Occasionally the old man is a very
critical old man, as in the Caucasian tale of the youngest prince
who wanted to build a flawless church for his father, so as to
inherit the kingdom. This he does, and nobody can discover a
single flaw, but then an old man comes along and says, "That's
a fine church you've built, to be sure! What a pity the main wall
is a bit crooked!" The prince has the church pulled down again
18 Finnische und estnische Volksmarchen, loc. cit.
18 Deutsche Marchen seit Grimm, p. 382 [op. cit.]. In one Balkan tale (Balkanmarchen, p. 65 ["The Shepherd and the Three Samovilas"]) the old man is called
the "Czar of all the birds." Here the magpie knows all the answers. Cf. the
mysterious "master of the dovecot" in Gustav Meyrink's novel Der weisse Dominikaner.
20 Marchen aus Iran, p. 152 [op. cit.].
21 Spanische und Portugiesische Marehen, p. 158 ["The White Parrot"].
22 Ibid., p. 199 ["Queen Rose, or Little Tom"].
23Nordisehe Volksmarchen, Vol. I, p. 33if. ["The Werewolf"].
221
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
and builds a new one, but here too the old man discovers a
flaw, and so on for the third time. 24
406
The old man thus represents knowledge, reflection, insight,
wisdom, cleverness, and intuition on the one hand, and on the
other, moral qualities such as goodwill and readiness to help,
which make his "spiritual" character sufficiently plain. Since
the archetype is an autonomous content of the unconscious, the
fairytale, which usually concretizes the archetypes, can cause the
old man to appear in a dream in much the same way as happens
in modern dreams. In a Balkan tale the old man appears to
the hard-pressed hero in a dream and gives him good advice
about accomplishing the impossible tasks that have been im
posed upon him. 25 His relation to the unconscious is clearly
expressed in one Russian fairytale, where he is called the "King
of the Forest." As the peasant sat down wearily on a tree stump,
a little old man crept out: "all wrinkled he w r as and a green
beard hung down to his knees." "Who are you?" asked the
peasant. "I am Och, King of the Forest," said the manikin. The
peasant hired out his profligate son to him, "and the King of
the Forest departed with the young man, and conducted him to
that other world under the earth and brought him to a green
hut, . . . In the hut everything was green: the walls were
green and the benches, Och's wife was green and the children
were green . . . and the little water-women who waited on him
were as green as rue." Even the food was green. The King of
the Forest is here a vegetation or tree numen who reigns in the
woods and, through the nixies, also has connections with water,
which clearly shows his relation to the unconscious since the
latter is frequently expressed through ivood and water symbols.
4°7
There is equally a connection with the unconscious when
the old man appears as a dwarf. The fairytale about the princess
who was searching for her lover says: "Night came and the dark
ness, and still the princess sat in the same place and wept. As she
sat there lost in thought, she heard a voice greeting her: 'Good
evening, pretty maid! Why are you sitting here so lonely and
sad?' She sprang up hastily and felt very confused, and that was
no wonder. But when she looked round there was only a tiny
little old man standing before her, who nodded his head at her
24 Kauhasische Marchen j pp. 35!. ["The False and the True Nightingale"].
25 Balkanmarchen, p. 217 ["The Lubi (She-Devil) and the Fair of the Earth"].
222
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
and looked so kind and simple." In a Swiss fairytale, the peas
ant's son who wants to bring the king's daughter a basket of
apples encounters "es chlis isigs Manndli, das frogt-ne, was er
do i dem Chratte haig?" (a little iron man who asked what he
had there in the basket). In another passage the "Manndli" has
"es isigs Chlaidli a" (iron clothes on). By "isig" presumably
"eisern" (iron) is meant, which is more probable than "eisig"
(icy). In the latter case it would have to be "es Chlaidli vo Is"
(clothes of ice).26 There are indeed little ice men, and little
metal men too; in fact, in a modern dream I have even come
across a little black iron man who appeared at a critical juncture,
like the one in this fairytale of the country bumpkin who
wanted to marry the princess.
4°8
In a modern series of visions in which the figure of the wise
old man occurred several times, he was on one occasion of nor
mal size and appeared at the very bottom of a crater surrounded
by high rocky walls; on another occasion he was a tiny figure
on the top of a mountain, inside a low, stony enclosure. We find
the same motif in Goethe's tale of the dwarf princess who lived
in a casket.27 In this connection we might also mention the
Anthroparion, the little leaden man of the Zosimos vision,28 as
well as the metallic men who dwell in the mines, the crafty
dactyls of antiquity, the homunculi of the alchemists, and the
gnomic throng of hobgoblins, brownies, gremlins, etc. How
"real" such conceptions are became clear to me on the occa
sion of a serious mountaineering accident: after the catastrophe
two of the climbers had the collective vision, in broad daylight,
of a little hooded man who scrambled out of an inaccessible
crevasse in the ice face and passed across the glacier, creating a
regular panic in the two beholders. I have often encountered
motifs which made me think that the unconscious must be the
world of the infinitesimally small. Such an idea could be de
rived rationalistically from the obscure feeling that in all these
visions we are dealing with something endopsychic, the infer
ence being that a thing must be exceedingly small in order to fit
26This occurs in the tale of the griffin, No. 84 in the volume of children's fairy
tales collected by the brothers Grimm (1912), II, pp. 84ft. The text swarms with
phonetic mistakes. [The English text (trans, by Margaret Hunt, rev. by James
Stern, no. 165) has "hoary."—TRANS.]
27 Goethe, "Die neue Melusine."
2g cf "The Visions of Zosimos," par. 87 (III, i, 2-3).
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
4°9
inside the head. I am no friend of any such "rational" con
jectures, though I would not say that they are all beside the
mark. It seems to me more probable that this liking for dimin
utives on the one hand and for superlatives—giants, etc.—on the
other is connected with the queer uncertainty of spatial and
temporal relations in the unconscious. 29 Man's sense of propor
tion, his rational conception of big and small, is distinctly
anthropomorphic, and it loses its validity not only in the realm
of physical phenomena but also in those parts of the collective
unconscious beyond the range of the specifically human. The
atman is "smaller than small and bigger than big," he is "the
size of a thumb" yet he "encompasses the earth on every side
and rules over the ten-finger space." And of the Cabiri Goethe
says: "little in length / mighty in strength." In the same way,
the archetype of the wise old man is quite tiny, almost imper
ceptible, and yet it possesses a fateful potency, as anyone can
see when he gets down to fundamentals. The archetypes have
this peculiarity in common with the atomic world, which is
demonstrating before our eyes that the more deeply the in
vestigator penetrates into the universe of microphysics the more
devastating are the explosive forces he finds enchained there.
That the greatest effects come from the smallest causes has be
come patently clear not only in physics but in the field of psy
chological research as well. How often in the critical moments
of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing!
In certain primitive fairytales, the illuminating quality of
our archetype is expressed by the fact that the old man is identi
fied with the sun. He brings a firebrand with him which he uses
for roasting a pumpkin. After he has eaten, he takes the fire
away again, which causes mankind to steal it from him. 30 In a
North American Indian tale, the old man is a witch-doctor who
owns the fire. 31 Spirit too has a fiery aspect, as we know from
the language of the Old Testament and from the story of the
Pentecostal miracle.
29 In one Siberian fairytale (Marchen aus Sibirien, no. 13 ["The Man Turned to
Stone"]) the old man is a white shape towering lip to heaven.
30 Indiancrmarchen aus Sudamerika, p. 285 ["The End of the World and the
Theft of Fire"—Bolivian],
31 Indianermarchen aus Nordamerika, p. 74 [Tales of Manabos: "The Theft ol
Fire"].
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
4 10
Apart from his cleverness, wisdom, and insight, the old man,
as we have already mentioned, is also notable for his moral
qualities; what is more, he even tests the moral qualities of
others and makes his gifts dependent on this test. There is a
particularly instructive example of this in the Estonian fairy
tale of the stepdaughter and the real daughter. The former is
an orphan distinguished for her obedience and good behaviour.
The story begins with her distaff falling into a well. She jumps
in after it, but does not drown, and comes to a magic country
where, continuing her quest, she meets a cow, a ram, and an
appletree whose wishes she fulfils. She now comes to a washhouse where a dirty old man is sitting who wants her to wash
him. The following dialogue develops: "Pretty maid, pretty
maid, wash me, do, it is hard for me to be so dirty!" "What shall
I heat the stove with?" "Collect wooden pegs and crows' dung
and make a fire with that." But she fetches sticks, and asks,
"Where shall I get the bath-water?" "Under the barn there
stands a white mare. Get her to piss into the tub!" But she takes
clean water, and asks, "Where shall I get a bath-switch?" "Cut
off the white mare's tail and make a bath-switch of that!" But
she makes one out of birch-twigs, and asks, "Where shall I get
soap?" "Take a pumice-stone and scrub me with that!" But she
fetches soap from the village and with that she washes the old
man.
4U
As a reward he gives her a bag full of gold and precious
stones. The daughter of the house naturally becomes jealous,
throws her distaff into the well, where she finds it again in
stantly. Nevertheless she goes on and does everything wrong
that the stepdaughter had done right, and is rewarded accord
ingly. The frequency of this motif makes further examples
superfluous.
41*
The figure of the superior and helpful old man tempts one
to connect him somehow or other with God. In the German
tale of the soldier and the black princess 32 it is related how the
princess, on whom a curse has been laid, creeps out of her iron
coffin every night and devours the soldier standing guard over
the tomb. One soldier, when his turn came, tried to escape.
"That evening he stole away, fled over the fields and mountains,
Z 2 Deutsche Marchen seit Grimm, pp.
i8gff.
225
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
4'3
and came to a beautiful meadow. Suddenly a little man stood
before him with a long grey beard, but it was none other than
the Lord God himself, who could no longer go on looking at all
the mischief the devil wrought every night. 'Whither away?'
said the little grey man, 'may I come with you?' And because the
little old man looked so friendly the soldier told him that he
had run away and why he had done so." Good advice follows, as
always. In this story the old man is taken for God in the same
naive way that the English alchemist, Sir George Ripley, 33 de
scribes the "old king" as "antiquus dierum"—"the Ancient of
Days."
Just as all archetypes have a positive, favourable, bright side
that points upwards, so also they have one that points down
wards, partly negative and unfavourable, partly chthonic, but
for the rest merely neutral. To this the spirit archetype is no
exception. Even his dwarf form implies a kind of limitation and
suggests a naturalistic vegetation-numen sprung from the under
world. In one Balkan tale, the old man is handicapped by the
loss of an eye. It has been gouged out by the Vili, a species of
winged demon, and the hero is charged with the task of getting
them to restore it to him. The old man has therefore lost part
of his eyesight—that is, his insight and enlightenment—to the
daemonic world of darkness; this handicap is reminiscent of
the fate of Osiris, who lost an eye at the sight of a black pig
(his wicked brother Set), or again of Wotan, who sacrificed his
eye at the spring of Mimir. Characteristically enough, the ani
mal ridden by the old man in our fairytale is a goat, a sign that
he himself has a dark side. In a Siberian tale, he appears as a
one-legged, one-handed, and one-eyed greybeard who wakens a
dead man with an iron staff. In the course of the story the latter,
after being brought back to life several times, kills the old man
by a mistake, and thus throws away his good fortune. The story
is entitled "The One-sided Old Man," and in truth his handicap
shows that he consists of one half only. The other half is in
visible, but appears in the shape of a murderer who seeks the
hero's life. Eventually the hero succeeds in killing his persistent
murderer, but in the struggle he also kills the one-sided old
man, so that the identity of the two victims is clearly revealed.
It is thus possible that the old man is his own opposite, a life
's In his "Cantilena" (15 cent.). [Cf. Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 374.].
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
bringer as well as a death-dealer—"ad utrumque peritus" (skilled
in both), as is said of Hermes. 3 4
4'4
In these circumstances, whenever the "simple" and "kindly"
old man appears, it is advisable for heuristic and other reasons
to scrutinize the context with some care. For instance, in the
Estonian tale we first mentioned, about the hired boy who lost
the cow, there is a suspicion that the helpful old man who hap
pened to be on the spot so opportunely had surreptitiously made
away with the cow beforehand in order to give his protege an
excellent reason for taking to flight. This may very well be, for
everyday experience shows that it is quite possible for a supe
rior, though subliminal, foreknowledge of fate to contrive some
annoying incident for the sole purpose of bullying our Simple
Simon of an ego-consciousness into the way he should go, which
for sheer stupidity he would never have found by himself. Had
our orphan guessed that it was the old man who had whisked
off his cow as if by magic, he would have seemed like a spiteful
troll or a devil. And indeed the old man has a wicked aspect
too, just as the primitive medicine-man is a healer and helper
and also the dreaded concocter of poisons. The very word
φάρμακον means 'poison' as well as 'antidote,' and poison can in
fact be both.
4'5
The old man, then, has an ambiguous elfin character—wit
ness the extremely instructive figure of Merlin—seeming, in
certain of his forms, to be good incarnate and in others an aspect
of evil. Then again, he is the wicked magician who, from sheer
egoism, does evil for evil's sake. In a Siberian fairytale, he is an
evil spirit "on whose head were two lakes with two ducks swim
ming in them." He feeds on human flesh. The story relates how
the hero and his companions go to a feast in the next village,
leaving their dogs at home. These, acting on the principle
"when the cat's away the mice do play," also arrange a feast, at
the climax of which they all hurl themselves on the stores of
meat. The men return home and chase out the dogs, who dash
off into the wilderness. "Then the Creator spoke to Ememqut
[the hero of the tale]: 'Go and look for the dogs with your
wife.' " But he gets caught in a terrible snow-storm and has to
seek shelter in the hut of the evil spirit. There now follows the
34 Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, I, 94 (trans, by Thomson, I, p. 356). See
Hugo Rahner, "Die seelenheilende Blume."
227
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
well-known motif of the biter bit. T h e "Creator" is Ememqut's
father, but the father of the Creator is called the "Self-created"
because he created himself. Although we are nowhere told that
the old man with the two lakes on his heacl lured the hero and
his wife into the hut in order to satisfy his hunger, it may be
conjecturcd that a very peculiar spirit must have got into the
dogs to cause them to celebrate a feast like the men and after
wards—contrary to their naLure—to run away, so that Ememqut
had to go out and look for them; and that the hero was then
caught in a snow-storm in order to drive him into the arms of
the wicked old man. T h e fact that the Creator, son of the Selfcrealcd, was a party to the advice raises a knotty problem whose
solution wc had best leave to the Siberian theologians.
4*0
In a Balkan fairytale the old man gives the childless Czarina
a magic apple to eat, from which she becomes pregnant and
bears a son, it being stipulated that the old man shall be his
godfather. T h e boy, however, grows u p into a horrid little
tough who bullies all the children and slaughters the cattle. For
ten years he is given no name. T h e n the old man appears, sticks
a knife into his leg, and calls him the "Knife Prince." T h e boy
now wants to set lorth on his adventures, which his father, after
long hesitation, finally allows him to do. T h e knite in his leg is
of vital importance: il he draws it out himself, he will live; if
anybody else does so, he will die. In the end the knife becomes
his doom, for an old witch pulls it out when he is asleep. H e
dies, but is restored to life by the friends he has won. 3 "' Here the
old man is a helper, but also the contriver of a dangerous fate
which might just as easily have turned out for the bad. T h e evil
showed itself early and plainly in the boy's villainous character.
417
I n another Balkan tale, there is a variant of our motif that is
worth mentioning: A king is looking for his sister who has been
abducted by a stranger. His wanderings bring him to the hut of
a n old woman, who warns him against continuing the search.
But a tiee laden with fruit, ever receding before him, lures him
away from the hut. When at last the tree comes to a halt, an old
man climbs down from the branches. H e regales the king and
takes him to a castle, where the sister is living with the old man
as his wife. She tells her brother that the old man is a wicked
S3 B a l k a n m a r c h e n , pp. 34(1. ["The Deeds o[ the Czar's Son and His Two Com
panions"].
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
spirit who will kill him. And sure enough, three days after
wards, the king vanishes without trace. His younger brother now
takes up the search and kills the wicked spirit in the form of a
dragon. A handsome young man is thereby released from the
spell and forthwith marries the sister. The old man, appearing
at first as a tree-numen, is obviously connected with the sister.
He is a murderer. In an interpolated episode, he is accused of
enchanting a whole city by turning it to iron, i.e., making it
immovable, rigid, and locked up. 3 ® He also holds the king's
sister a captive and will not let her return to her relatives. This
amounts to saying that the sister is animus-possessed. The old
man is therefore to be regarded as her animus. But the manner
in which the king is drawn into this possession, and the way he
seeks for his sister, make us think that she has an anima sig
nificance for her brother. The fateful archetype of the old
man has accordingly first taken possession of the king's anima—
in other words, robbed him of the archetype of life which the
anima personifies—and forced him to go in search of the lost
charm, the "treasure hard to attain," thus making him the
mythical hero, the higher personality who is an expression of
the self. Meanwhile, the old man acts the part of the villain and
has to be forcibly removed, only to appear at the end as the
husband of the sister-anima, or more properly as the bride
groom of the soul, who celebrates the sacred incest that symbol
izes the union of opposites and equals. This bold enantiodromia,
a very common occurrence, not only signifies the rejuvenation
and transformation of the old man, but hints at a secret inner
relation of evil to good and vice versa.
l8
4
So in this story we see the archetype of the old man in the
guise of an evil-doer, caught up in all the twists and turns of an
individuation process that ends suggestively with the hieros
gamos. Conversely, in the Russian tale of the Forest King, he
starts by being helpful and benevolent, but then refuses to let
his hired boy go, so that the main episodes in the story deal
with the boy's repeated attempts to escape from the clutches of
the magician. Instead of the quest we have flight, which none
theless appears to win the same reward as adventures valiantly
sought, for in the end the hero marries the king's daughter. The
36 Ibid., pp. ιηηΆ. ["The Son-in-Law from Abroad"].
229
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
magician, however, must rest content with the role of the biter
bit.
IV. THERIOMORPHIC SPIRIT SYMBOLISM IN FAIRYTALES
4'9
4 20
The description of our archetype would not be complete if
we omitted to consider one special form of its manifestation,
namely its animal form. This belongs essentially to the theriomorphism of gods and demons and has the same psychological
significance. The animal form shows that the contents and func
tions in question are still in the extrahuman sphere, i.e., on a
plane beyond human consciousness, and consequently have a
share on the one hand in the daemonically superhuman and on
the other in the bestially subhuman. It must be remembered,
however, that this division is only true within the sphere of
consciousness, where it is a necessary condition of thought. Logic
says tertium rton datur, meaning that we cannot envisage the
opposites in their oneness. In other words, while the abolition
of an obstinate antinomy can be no more than a postulate for
us, this is by no means so for the unconscious, whose contents
are without exception paradoxical or antinomial by nature, not
excluding the category of being. If anyone unacquainted with
the psychology of the unconscious wants to get a working
knowledge of these matters, I would recommend a study of
Christian mysticism and Indian philosophy, where he will find
the clearest elaboration of the antinomies of the unconscious.
Although the old man has, up to now, looked and behaved
more or less like a human being, his magical powers and his
spiritual superiority suggest that, in good and bad alike, he is
outside, or above, or below the human level. Neither for the
primitive nor for the unconscious does his animal aspect imply
any devaluation, for in certain respects the animal is superior
to man. It has not yet blundered into consciousness nor pitted
a self-willed ego against the power from which it lives; on the
contrary, it fulfils the will that actuates it in a well-nigh perfect
manner. Were it conscious, it would be morally better than
man. There is deep doctrine in the legend of the fall: it is the
expression of a dim presentiment that the emancipation of egoconsciousness was a Luciferian deed. Man's whole history con230
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
sists from the very beginning in a conflict between his feeling of
inferiority and his arrogance. Wisdom seeks the middle path
and pays for this audacity by a dubious affinity with daemon
and beast, and so is open to moral misinterpretation.
421
Again and again in fairytales we encounter the motif of
helpful animals. These act like humans, speak a human lan
guage, and display a sagacity and a knowledge superior to man's.
In these circumstances we can say with some justification that
the archetype of the spirit is being expressed through an animal
form. A German fairytale 37 relates how a young man, while
searching for his lost princess, meets a wolf, who says, "Do not
be afraid! But tell me, where is your way leading you?" The
young man recounts his story, whereupon the wolf gives him as
a magic gift a few of his hairs, with which the young man can
summon his help at any time. This intermezzo proceeds exactly
like the meeting with the helpful old man. In the same story,
the archetype also displays its other, wicked side. In order to
make this clear I shall give a summary of the story:
42a
While the young man is watching his pigs in the wood, he
discovers a large tree, whose branches lose themselves in the
clouds. "How would it be," says he to himself, "if you were to
look at the world from the top of that great tree?" So he climbs
up, all day long he climbs, without even reaching the branches.
Evening comes, and he has to pass the night in a fork of the tree.
Next day he goes on climbing and by noon has reached the
foliage. Only towards evening does he come to a village nestling
in the branches. The peasants who live there give him food and
shelter for the night. In the morning he climbs still further.
Towards noon, he reaches a castle in which a young girl lives.
Here he finds that the tree goes no higher. She is a king's daugh
ter, held prisoner by a wicked magician. So the young man
stays with the princess, and she allows him to go into all the
rooms of the castle: one room alone she forbids him to enter.
But curiosity is too strong. He unlocks the door, and there in
the room he finds a raven fixed to the wall with three nails.
One nail goes through his throat, the two others through the
wings. The raven complains of thirst and the young man, moved
by pity, gives him water to drink. At each sip a nail falls out,
Μ Deutsche Marchen seit Grimm, pp. iff. ["The Princess in the Tree"].
231
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
and at the third sip the raven is free and flies out at the window.
When the princess hears of it she is very frightened and says,
"That was the devil who enchanted me! It won't be long now
before he fetches me again." And one fine morning she has
indeed vanished.
423
The young man now sets out in search of her and, as we
have described above, meets the wolf. In the same way he meets
a bear and a lion, who also give him some hairs. In addition the
lion informs him that the princess is imprisoned nearby in a
hunting-lodge. The young man finds the house and the princess,
but is told that flight is impossible, because the hunter possesses
a three-legged white horse that knows everything and would
infallibly warn its master. Despite that, the young man tries to
flee away with her, but in vain. The hunter overtakes him but,
because he had saved his life as a raven, lets him go and rides off
again with the princess. When the hunter has disappeared into
the wood, the young man creeps back to the house and per
suades the princess to wheedle from the hunter the secret of
how he obtained his clever white horse. This she successfully
does in the night, and the young man, who has hidden himself
under the bed, learns that about an hour's journey from the
hunting-lodge there dwells a witch who breeds magic horses.
Whoever was able to guard the foals for three days might choose
a horse as a reward. In former times, said the hunter, she used
to make a gift of twelve Iambs into the bargain, in order to
satisfy the hunger of the twelve wolves who lived in the woods
near the farmstead, and prevent them from attacking; but to
him she gave no lambs. So the wolves followed him as he rode
away, and while crossing the borders of her domain they suc
ceeded in tearing off one of his horse's hoofs. That was why it
had only three legs.
2
4 4
Then the young man made haste to seek out the witch and
agreed to serve her on condition that she gave him not only a
horse of his own choosing but twelve lambs as well. To this she
consented. Instantly she commanded the foals to run away, and,
to make him sleepy, she gave him brandy. He drinks, falls asleep,
and the foals escape. On the first day he catches them with the
help of the wolf, on the sccond day the bear helps him, and on
the third the lion. He can now go and choose his reward. The
witch's little daughter tells him which horse her mother rides.
232
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
This is naturally the best horse, and it too is white. Hardly has
he got it out of the stall when the witch pierces the four hoofs
and sucks the marrow out of the bones. From this she bakes a
cake and gives it to the young man for his journey. The horse
grows deathly weak, but the young man feeds it on the cake,
whereupon the horse recovers its former strength. He gets out
of the woods unscathed after quieting the twelve wolves with
the twelve lambs. He then fetches the princess and rides away
with her. But the three-legged horse calls out to the hunter,
who sets off in pursuit and quickly catches up with them, be
cause the four-legged horse refuses to gallop. As the hunter ap
proaches, the four-legged horse cries out to the three-legged,
"Sister, throw him off!" The magician is thrown and trampled
to pieces by the two horses. The young man sets the princess on
the three-legged horse, and the pair of them ride away to her
father's kingdom, where they get married. The four-legged
horse begs him to cut off both their heads, for otherwise they
would bring disaster upon him. This he does, and the horses
are transformed into a handsome prince and a wonderfully
beautiful princess, who after a while repair "to their own king
dom." They had been changed into horses by the hunter, long
ago.
4«5
Apart from the theriomorphic spirit symbolism in this tale,
it is especially interesting to note that the function of knowing
and intuition is represented by a riding-animal. This is as much
as to say that the spirit can be somebody's property. The threelegged white horse is thus the property of the demonic hunter,
and the four-legged one the property of the witch. Spirit is here
partly a function, which like any other object (horse) can change
its owner, and partly an autonomous subject (magician as owner
of the horse). By obtaining the four-legged horse from the
witch, the young man frees a spirit or a thought of some special
kind from the grip of the unconscious. Here as elsewhere, the
witch stands for a mater natura or the original "matriarchal"
state of the unconscious, indicating a psychic constitution in
which the unconscious is opposed only by a feeble and stilldependent consciousness. The four-legged horse shows itself
superior to the three-legged, since it can command the latter.
And since the quaternity is a symbol of wholeness and wholeness
plays a considerable role in the picture-world of the uncon-
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
scious, 38 the victory of four-leggedness over three-leggedness is
not altogether unexpected. But what is the meaning of the op
position between threeness and fourness, or rather, what does
threeness mean as compared with wholeness? In alchemy this
problem is known as the axiom of Maria and runs all through
alchemical philosophy for more than a thousand years, finally
to be taken up again in the Cabiri scene in Faust. The earliest
literary version of it is to be found in the opening words of
Plato's Timaeus, 39 of which Goethe gives us a reminder. Among
the alchemists we can see clearly how the divine Trinity has its
counterpart in a lower, chthonic triad (similar to Dante's threeheaded devil). This represents a principle which, by reason of
its symbolism, betrays affinities with evil, though it is by no
means certain that it expresses nothing but evil. Everything
points rather to the fact that evil, or its familiar symbolism,
belongs to the family of figures which describe the dark, noc
turnal, lower, chthonic element. In this symbolism the lower
stands to the higher as a correspondence 40 in reverse; that is to
say it is conceived, like the upper, as a triad. Three, being
a masculine number, is logically correlated with the wicked
hunter, who can be thought of alchemically as the lower triad.
Four, a feminine number, is assigned to the old woman. The
two horses are miraculous animals that talk and know and thus
represent the unconscious spirit, which in one case is subordi
nated to the wicked magician and in the other to the old witch.
426
Between the three and the four there exists the primary op
position of male and female, but whereas fourness is a symbol
of wholeness, threeness is not. The latter, according to alchemy,
denotes polarity, since one triad always presupposes another,
just as high presupposes low, lightness darkness, good evil. In
terms of energy, polarity means a potential, and wherever a
38 With reference to the quaternity I would call attention to my earlier writings,
and in particular to Psychology and Alchemy and "Psychology and Religion."
39 The oldest representation I know of this problem is that of the four sons of
Horus, three of whom are occasionally depicted with the heads of animals, and
the other with the head of a man. Chronologically this links up with Ezekiel's
vision of the four creatures, which then reappear in the attributes of the four
evangelists. Three have animal heads and one a human head (the angel). [Cf.
frontispiece to Psychology and Religion: West and fast.—EDITORS.]
•m> According to the dictum in the "Tabula smaragdina," "Quod est inferius, est
sicut quod est superius" (That which is below is like that which is above).
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
potential exists there is the possibility of a current, a flow of
events, for the tension of opposites strives for balance. If one
imagines the quaternity as a square divided into two halves by
a diagonal, one gets two triangles whose apices point in opposite
directions. One could therefore say metaphorically that if the
wholeness symbolized by the quaternity is divided into equal
halves, it produces two opposing triads. This simple reflection
shows how three can be derived from four, and in the same
way the hunter of the captured princess explains how his horse,
from being four-legged, became three-legged, through having
one hoof torn off by the twelve wolves. The three-leggedness is
due to an accident, therefore, which occurred at the very mo
ment when the horse was leaving the territory of the dark
mother. In psychological language we should say that when the
unconscious wholeness becomes manifest, i.e., leaves the un
conscious and crosses over into the sphere of consciousness, one
of the four remains behind, held fast by the horror vacui of the
unconscious. There thus arises a triad, which as we know—not
from the fairytale but from the history of symbolism—con
stellates a corresponding triad in opposition to it 41—in other
words, a conflict ensues. Here too we could ask with Socrates,
"One, two, three—but, my dear Timaeus, of those who yester
day were the banqueters and today are the banquet-givers,
where is the fourth?" 42 He has remained in the realm of the
dark mother, caught by the wolfish greed of the unconscious,
which is unwilling to let anything escape from its magic circle
save at the cost of a sacrifice.
427
The hunter or old magician and the witch correspond to the
negative parental imagos in the magic world of the unconscious.
The hunter first appears in the story as a black raven. He has
stolen away the princess and holds her a prisoner. She describes
him as "the devil." But it is exceedingly odd that he himself is
locked up in the one forbidden room of the castle and fixed to
the wall with three nails, as though crucified. He is imprisoned,
like all jailers, in his own prison, and bound like all who curse.
The prison of both is a magic castle at the top of a gigantic tree,
presumably the world-tree. The princess belongs to the upper
41 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, fig, 54 and par. 539; and, for a more detailed
account, "The Spirit Mercurius/' par. 271.
42 This unexplained passage has been put down to Plato's "drollery."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
region of light near the sun. Sitting there in captivity on the
world-tree, she is a kind of anima mundi who has got herself
into the power of darkness. But this catch does not seem to have
done the latter much good either, seeing that the captor is cruci
fied and moreover with three nails. The crucifixion evidently
betokens a state of agonizing bondage and suspension, fit pun
ishment for one foolhardy enough to venture like a Prometheus
into the orbit of the opposing principle. This was what the
raven, who is identical with the hunter, did when he ravished
a precious soul from the upper world of light; and so, as a pun
ishment, he is nailed to the wall in that upper world. That this is
an inverted reflection of the primordial Christian image should
be obvious enough. The Saviour who freed the soul of humanity
from the dominion of the prince of this world was nailed to a
cross down below on earth, just as the thieving raven is nailed
to the w r all in the celestial branches of the world-tree for his
presumptuous meddling. In our fairytale, the peculiar instru
ment of the magic spell is the triad of nails. Who it was that
made the raven captive is not told in the tale, but it sounds as
if a spell had been laid upon him in the triune name. 43
428
Having climbed up the world-tree and penetrated into
the magic castle where he is to rescue the princess, our young
hero is permitted to enter all the rooms but one, the very room
in which the raven is imprisoned. Just as in paradise there was
one tree of which it was forbidden to eat, so here there is one
room that is not to be opened, with the natural result that it is
entered at once. Nothing excites our interest more than a prohi
bition. It is the surest way of provoking disobedience. Obviously
there is some secret scheme afoot to free not so much the princess
as the raven. As soon as the hero catches sight of him, the raven
begins to cry piteously and to complain of thirst, 41 and the
43 In D e u t s c h e M i i r c h e n s e i t G r i m m (I, p. 256 ["The Mary-Child"]) it is said that
the " rhrcc-in-One" is in the forbidden room, which seems to me xvorth noting.
41 Aelian ( De natura animalium, I, 47) relates that Apollo condemned the ravens
to perpetual thirst because a raven sent to fetch water dallied too long. In German
folklore it is said that the raven has to suffer from thirst in June or August, the
reason given being that he alone did not mourn at the death of Christ, and that
h e failed to return when Noah sent him forth from the ark. (Kohler, K l e i n e r e
Schrifteii zur Marchenforschung, p. 3.) For the raven as an allegory of evil, see
the exhaustive account by Hugo Rahner, "Earth Spirit and Divine Spirit in
Patristic Theology." On the other hand the raven is closely connected with Apollo
236
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
young man, moved by the virtue of compassion, slakes it, not
with hyssop and gall, but with quickening water, whereupon
the three nails fall out and the raven escapes through the open
window. Thus the evil spirit regains his freedom, changes into
the hunter, steals the princess for the second time, but this time
locks her up in his hunting-lodge on earth. The secret scheme
is partially unveiled: the princess must be brought down from
the upper world to the world of men, which was evidently not
possible without the help of the evil spirit and man's disobe
dience.
429
But since in the human world, too, the hunter of souls is the
princess's master, the hero has to intervene anew, to which end,
as we have seen, he filches the four-legged horse from the witch
and breaks the three-legged spell of the magician. It was the
triad that first transfixed the raven, and the triad also represents
the power of the evil spirit. These are the two triads that point
in opposite directions.
430
Turning now to quite another field, the realm of psycho
logical experience, we know that three of the four functions of
consciousness can become differentiated, i.e., conscious, while
the other remains connected with the matrix, the unconscious,
and is known as the "inferior" function. It is the Achilles heel
of even the most heroic consciousness: somewhere the strong
man is weak, the clever man foolish, the good man bad, and the
reverse is also true. In our fairytale the triad appears as a
mutilated quaternity. If only one leg could be added to the
other three, it would make a whole. The enigmatic axiom of
Maria runs: ". . . from the third comes the one as the fourth"
( IK τον τρίτον τό ev τέταρτον)—which presumably means, when the
third produces the fourth it at once produces unity. The lost
component which is in the possession of the wolves belonging
to the Great Mother is indeed only a quarter, but, together with
the three, it makes a whole which does away with division and
conflict.
as his sacred animal, and in the Bible too he has a positive significance. See Psalm
147 : 9: "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry";
Job 38:41: "Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry
unto God, they wander for lack of meat." Cf. also Luke 12 : 24. Ravens appear
as true "ministering spirits" in I Kings 17 : 6, where they bring Elijah the Tishbite his daily fare.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
43 1
But how is it that a quarter, on the evidence of symbolism,
is at the same time a triad? Here the symbolism of our fairytale
leaves us in the lurch, and we are obliged to have recourse to
the facts of psychology. I have said previously that three func
tions can become differentiated, and only one remains under the
spell of the unconscious. This statement must be defined more
closely. It is an empirical fact that only one function becomes
more or less successfully differentiated, which on that account
is known as the superior or main function, and together with
extraversion or introversion constitutes the type of conscious
attitude. This function has associated with it one or two par
tially differentiated auxiliary functions which hardly ever at
tain the same degree of differentiation as the main function,
that is, the same degree of applicability by the will. Accordingly
they possess a higher degree of spontaneity than the main func
tion, which displays a large measure of reliability and is ame
nable to our intentions. The fourth, inferior function proves
on the other hand to be inaccessible to our will. It appears now
as a teasing and distracting imp, now as a deus ex machina. But
always it comes and goes of its own volition. From this it is clear
that even the differentiated functions have only partially freed
themselves from the unconscious; for the rest they are still rooted
in it and to that extent they operate under its rule. Hence the
three "differentiated" functions at the disposal of the ego have
three corresponding unconscious components that have not yet
broken loose from the unconscious. 45 And just as the three
conscious and differentiated parts of these functions are con
fronted by a fourth, undifferentiated function which acts as a
painfully disturbing factor, so also the superior function seems
to have its worst enemy in the unconscious. Nor should we omit
to mention one final turn of the screw: like the devil who de
lights in disguising himself as an angel of light, the inferior
function secretly and mischievously influences the superior
function most of all, just as the latter represses the former most
strongly. 46
43¾
These unfortunately somewhat abstract formulations are
necessary in order to throw some light on the tricky and allusive
45 Pictured as three princesses, buried neck deep, in Nordische Volksmarchen,
II, pp. 1263. ["The Three Princesses in the White Land"].
ie> For the function theory, see Psychological Types.
238
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
433
associations in our—save the mark!—"childishly simple" fairy
tale. The two antithetical triads, the one banning and the
other representing the power of evil, tally to a hair's breadth
with the functional structure of the conscious and unconscious
psyche. Being a spontaneous, naive, and uncontrived product of
the psyche, the fairytale cannot very well express anything ex
cept what the psyche actually is. It is not only our fairytale that
depicts these structural psychic relations, but countless other
fairytales do the same. 47
Our fairytale reveals with unusual clarity the essentially
antithetical nature of the spirit archetype, while on the other
hand it shows the bewildering play of antinomies all aiming at
the great goal of higher consciousness. The young swineherd
who climbs from the animal level up to the top of the giant
world-tree and there, in the upper world of light, discovers his
captive anima, the high-born princess, symbolizes the ascent of
consciousness, rising from almost bestial regions to a lofty perch
with a broad outlook, which is a singularly appropriate image
for the enlargement of the conscious horizon. 48 Once the mascu
line consciousness has attained this height, it comes face to face
with its feminine counterpart, the anima. 49 She is a personifi
cation of the unconscious. The meeting shows how inept it is to
designate the latter as the "subconscious": it is not merely
"below" consciousness but also above it, so far above it indeed
that the hero has to climb up to it with considerable effort. This
"upper" unconscious, however, is far from being a "superconconscious" in the sense that anyone who reaches it, like our
hero, would stand as high above the "subconscious" as above
the earth's surface. On the contrary, he makes the disagreeable
discovery that his high and mighty anima, the Princess Soul, is
bewitched up there and no freer than a bird in a golden cage.
*11 would like to add, for the layman's benefit, that the theory of the psyche's
structure was not derived fiom fairytales and myths, but is grounded on empirical
observations made in the field of medico-psychological research and was corrob
orated only secondarily through the study of comparative symbology, in spheres
very far removed from ordinary medical practice.
48 A typical enantiodromia is played out here: as one cannot go any higher along
this road, one must now realize the other side of one's being, and climb down
again.
49 The young man asks himself, on catching sight of the tree, "How would it be if
you were to look at the world from the top of that great tree?"
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
He may pat himself on the back for having soared up from the
flatlands and from almost bestial stupidity, but his soul is in the
power of an evil spirit, a sinister father-imago of subterrene
nature in the guise of a raven, the celebrated theriomorphic
figure of the devil. What use now is his lofty perch and his wide
horizon, when his own dear soul is languishing in prison?
Worse, she plays the game of the underworld and ostensibly
tries to stop the young man from discovering the secret of her
imprisonment, by forbidding him to enter that one room. But
secretly she leads him to it by the very fact of her veto. It is as
though the unconscious had two hands of which one always does
the opposite of the other. The princess wants and does not want
to be rescued. But the evil spirit too has got himself into a fix,
by all accounts: he wanted to filch a fine soul from the shining
upper world—which he could easily do as a winged being—but
had not bargained on being shut up there himself. Black spirit
though he is, he longs for the light. That is his secret justifica
tion, just as his being spellbound is a punishment for his trans
gression. But so long as the evil spirit is caught in the upper
world, the princess cannot get down to earth either, and the
hero remains lost in pai-adise. So now he commits the sin of
disobedience and thereby enables the robber to escape, thus
causing the abduction of the princess for the second time—a
whole chain of calamities. In the result, however, the princess
comes down to earth and the devilish raven assumes the human
shape of the hunter. The other-worldly anima and the evil
principle both descend to the human sphere, that is, they
dwindle to human proportions and thus become approachable.
The three-legged, all-knowing horse represents the hunter's own
power: it corresponds to the unconscious components of the
differentiated functions. 50 The hunter himself personifies the
inferior function, which also manifests itself in the hero as his
inquisitiveness and love of adventure. As the story unfolds, he
becomes more and more like the hunter: he too obtains his
horse from the witch. But, unlike him, the hunter omitted to
OOThe "omniscience" of the unconscious components is naturally an exaggera
tion. Nevertheless they do have at their disposal—or are influenced by—subliminal
perceptions and memories of the unconscious, as well as by its instinctive arche
typal contents. It is these that give unconscious activities their unexpectedly
accurate information.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
obtain the twelve lambs in order to feed the wolves, who then
injured his horse. He forgot to pay tribute to the chthonic
powers because he was nothing but a robber. Through this
omission the hero learns that the unconscious lets its creatures
go only at the cost of sacrifice. 51 The number 12 is presumably a
time symbol, with the subsidiary meaning of the twelve labours
(αθλα) 52 that have to be performed for the unconscious before
one can get free. 53 The hunter looks like a previous unsuccessful
attempt of the hero to gain possession of his soul through rob
bery and violence. But the conquest of the soul is in reality a
work of patience, self-sacrifice, and devotion. By gaining posses
sion of the four-legged horse the hero steps right into the shoes
of the hunter and carries off the princess as well. The quaternity
in our tale proves to be the greater power, for it integrates into
its totality that which it still needed in order to become whole.
434
The archetype of the spirit in this, be it said, by no means
primitive fairytale is expressed theriomorphically as a system of
three functions which is subordinated to a unity, the evil spirit,
in the same way that some unnamed authority has crucified the
raven with a triad of three nails. The two supraordinate unities
correspond in the first case to the inferior function which is the
arch-enemy of the main function, namely to the hunter; and in
the second case to the main function, namely to the hero.
Hunter and hero are ultimately equated with one another, so
that the hunter's function is resolved in the hero. As a matter of
fact, the hero lies dormant in the hunter from the very begin
ning, egging him on, with all the unmoral means at his dis
posal, to carry out the rape of the soul, and then causing him to
play her into the hero's hands against the hunter's will. On the
surface a furious conflict rages between them, but down below
the one goes about the other's business. The knot is unravelled
directly the hero succeeds in capturing the quaternity—or in psy
chological language, when he assimilates the inferior function
BiThe hunter has reckoned without his host, as generally happens. Seldom or
never do we think of the price exacted by the spirit's activity.
52 Cf. the Heracles cycle.
53 The alchemists stress the long duration of the work and speak of the "longissima
via," "diuturnitas immensae meditationis," etc. The number 12 may be connected
with the ecclesiastical year, in which the redemptive work of Christ is fulfilled.
The lamb-sacrifice probably comes from this source too.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
into the ternary system. That puts an end to the conflict at one
blow, and the figure of the hunter melts into thin air. After this
victory, the hero sets his princess upon the three-legged steed
and together they ride away to her father's kingdom. From now
on she rules and personifies the realm of spirit that formerly
served the wicked hunter. Thus the anima is and remains the
representative of that part of the unconscious which can never
be assimilated into a humanly attainable whole.
435
Postscript. Only after the completion of my manuscript was
my attention drawn by a friend to a Russian variant of our
story. It bears the title "Maria Morevna." 54 The hero of the
story is no swineherd, but Czarevitch Ivan. There is an interest
ing explanation of the three helpful animals: they correspond
to Ivan's three sisters and their husbands, who are really birds.
The three sisters represent an unconscious triad of functions
related to both the animal and spiritual realms. The bird-men
are a species of angel and emphasize the auxiliary nature of the
unconscious functions. In the story they intervene at the critical
moment when the hero—unlike his German counterpart—gets
into the power of the evil spirit and is killed and dismembered
(the typical fate of the God-man!). 55 The evil spirit is an old
man who is often shown naked and is called Koschei 56 the
Deathless. The corresponding witch is the well-known Baba
Yaga. The three helpful animals of the German variant are
doubled here, appearing first as the bird-men and then as the
lion, the strange bird, and the bees. The princess is Queen
Maria Morevna, a redoubtable martial leader—Mary the queen
of heaven is lauded in the Russian Orthodox hymnal as "leader
of hosts"!—who has chained up the evil spirit with twelve chains
in the forbidden room in her castle. When Ivan slakes the old
devil's thirst he makes off with the queen. The magic riding
animals do not in the end turn into human beings. This Rus
sian story has a distinctly more primitive character.
5-1 "Daughter of the sea."—Afanas'ev, Russian Fairy Tales, pp. 5538.
55 The old man puts the dismembered body into a barrel which he throws into
the sea. This is reminiscent of the fate of Osiris (head and phallus).
56 From kost, 'bone,' and pahost, kapost, 'disgusting, dirty."
242
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
V. SUPPLEMENT
436
The following remarks lay no claim to general interest,
being in the main technical. I wanted at first to delete them
from this revised version of my essay, but then I changed my
mind and appended them in a supplement. The reader who is
not specifically interested in psychology can safely skip this sec
tion. For, in what follows, I have dealt with the abstruse-looking
problem of the three- and four-leggedness of the magic horses,
and presented my reflections in such a way as to demonstrate
the method I have employed. This piece of psychological reason
ing rests firstly on the irrational data of the material, that is, of
the fairytale, myth, or dream, and secondly on the conscious
realization of the "latent" rational connections which these data
have with one another. That such connections exist at all is
something of a hypothesis, like that which asserts that dreams
have a meaning. The truth of this assumption is not established
a priori: its usefulness can only be proved by application. It
therefore remains to be seen whether its methodical application
to irrational material enables one to interpret the latter in a
meaningful way. Its application consists in approaching the
material as if it had a coherent inner meaning. For this purpose
most of the data require a certain amplification, that is, they
need to be clarified, generalized, and approximated to a more
or less general concept in accordance with Cardan's rule of in
terpretation. For instance, the three-leggedness, in order to be
recognized for what it is, has first to be separated from the horse
and then approximated to its specific principle—the principle of
threeness. Likewise, the four-leggedness in the fairytale, when
raised to the level of a general concept, enters into relationship
with the threeness, and as a result we have the enigma men
tioned in the Timaeus i the problem of three and four. Triads
and tetrads represent archetypal structures that play a significant
part in all symbolism and are equally important for the investi
gation of myths and dreams. By raising the irrational datum
(three-leggedness and four-leggedness) to the level of a general
concept we elicit the universal meaning of this motif and en
courage the inquiring mind to tackle the problem seriously.
This task involves a series of reflections and deductions of a
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
technical nature which I would not wish to withhold from the
psychologically interested reader and especially from the pro
fessional, the less so as this labour of the intellect represents a
typical unravelling of symbols and is indispensable for an ade
quate understanding of the products of the unconscious. Only
in this way can the nexus of unconscious relationships be made
to yield their own meaning, in contrast to those deductive inter
pretations derived from a preconceived theory, e.g., interpreta
tions based on astronomy, meteorology, mythology, and—last
but not least—the sexual theory.
43V
The three-legged and four-legged horses are in truth a recon
dite matter worthy of closer examination. The three and the
four remind us not only of the dilemma we have already met in
the theory of psychological functions, but also of the axiom of
Maria Prophetissa, which plays a considerable role in alchemy.
It may therefore be rewarding to examine more closely the
meaning of the miraculous horses.
438
The first thing that seems to me worthy of note is that the
three-legged horse which is assigned to the princess as her mount
is a mare, and is moreover herself a bewitched princess. Threeness is unmistakably connected here with femininity, whereas
from the dominating religious standpoint of consciousness it is
an exclusively masculine affair, quite apart from the fact that 3,
as an uneven number, is masculine in the first place. One could
therefore translate threeness as "masculinity" outright, this
being all the more significant when one remembers the ancient
Egyptian triunity of God, Ka-mutef, 57 and Pharaoh.
439
Three-leggedness, as the attribute of some animal, denotes
the unconscious masculinity immanent in a female creature. In
a real woman it would correspond to the animus who, like the
magic horse, represents "spirit." In the case of the anima, how
ever, threeness does not coincide with any Christian idea of the
Trinity but with the "lower triangle," the inferior function
triad that constitutes the "shadow." The inferior half of the
personality is for the greater part unconscious. It does not de
note the whole of the unconscious, but only the personal seg
ment of it. The anima, on the other hand, so far as she is
distinguished from the shadow, personifies the collective un57 Ka-mutef means "bull of his mother." See Jacobsohn, "Die dogmatische Stellung
des Konigs in der Theologie der alten Aegypter," pp. 17, 35, 4iff.
244
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
conscious. If threeness is assigned to her as a riding-animal, it
means that she "rides" the shadow, is related to it as the mar. 58
In that case she possesses the shadow. But if she herself is the
horse, then she has lost her dominating position as a personifi
cation of the collective unconscious and is "ridden"—possessed
—by Princess A, spouse of the hero. As the fairytale rightly says,
she has been changed by witchcraft into the three-legged horse
(Princess B).
We can sort out this imbroglio more or less as follows:
440
1. Princess A is the anima 59 of the hero. She rides—that is,
possesses—the three-legged horse, who is the shadow, the infe
rior function-triad of her later spouse. To put it more simply:
she has taken possession of the inferior half of the hero's per
sonality. She has caught him on his weak side, as so often hap
pens in ordinary life, for where one is weak one needs support
and completion. In fact, a woman's place is on the weak side of
a man. This is how we would have to formulate the situation if
we regarded the hero and Princess A as two ordinary people.
But since it is a fairy-story played out mainly in the world of
magic, we are probably more correct in interpreting Princess A
as the hero's anima. In that case the hero has been wafted out
of the profane world through his encounter with the anima,
like Merlin by his fairy: as an ordinary man he is like one
caught in a marvellous dream, viewing the world through a veil
of mist.
1
44
2. The matter is now considerably complicated by the un
expected fact that the three-legged horse is a mare, an equiv
alent of Princess A. She (the mare) is Princess B, who in the
shape of a horse corresponds to Princess A's shadow (i.e., her
inferior function-triad). Princess B, however, differs from Prin
cess A in that, unlike her, she does not ride the horse but is
contained in it: she is bewitched and has thus come under the
spell of a masculine triad. Therefore, she is possessed by a
shadow.
44^
g. TJ ie question now is, whose shadow? It cannot be the
shadow of the hero, for this is already taken up by the latter's
88 Cf. S y m b o l s of T r a n s f o r m a t i o n , pars, gyoff., 421.
59 The fact that she is no ordinary girl, but is of royal descent and moreover the
electa of the evil spirit, proves her nonhuman, mythological nature. I must assume
that the reader is acquainted with the idea of the anima.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
443
anima. The fairytale gives us the answer: it is the hunter or
magician who has bewitched her. As we have seen, the hunter is
somehow connected with the hero, since the latter gradually
puts himself in his shoes. Hence one could easily arrive at the
conjecture that the hunter is at bottom none other than the
shadow of the hero. But this supposition is contradicted by
the fact that the hunter stands for a formidable power which
extends not only to the hero's anima but much further, namely
to the royal brother-sister pair of whose existence the hero and
his anima have no notion, and who appear very much out of the
blue in the story itself. The power that extends beyond the
orbit of the individual has a more than individual character
and cannot therefore be identified with the shadow, if we con
ceive and define this as the dark half of the personality. As a
supra-individual factor the numen of the hunter is a dominant
of the collective unconscious, and its characteristic featureshunter, magician, raven, miraculous horse, crucifixion or sus
pension high up in the boughs of the world-tree 60—touch the
Germanic psyche very closely. Hence the Christian Weltan
schauung, when reflected in the ocean of the (Germanic) un
conscious, logically takes on the features of Wotan. 61 In the
figure of the hunter we meet an imago dei, a God-image, for
Wotan is also a god of winds and spirits, on which account the
Romans fittingly interpreted him as Mercury.
4. The Prince and his sister, Princess B, have therefore been
seized by a pagan god and changed into horses, i.e., thrust down
to the animal level, into the realm of the unconscious. The
inference is that in their proper human shape the pair of them
60 "I ween that I hung / on the windy tree.
Hung there for nights full nine;
With the spear I was wounded, / and offered I was
To Othin, myself to myself,
On the tree that none / may ever know
What root beneath it runs."
—Hovamol, 139 (trans, by H. A. Bellows, p. 60).
61 Cf. the experience of God as described by Nietzsche in "Ariadne's Lament":
"I am but thy quarry,
Cruellest of hunters!
Thy proudest captive,
Thou brigand back of the clouds!"
—Gedichte und Spriiche, pp. 1558-
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
once belonged to the sphere of collective consciousness. But
444
who are they?
In order to answer this question we must proceed from the
fact that these two are an undoubted counterpart of the hero
and Princess A. They are connected with the latter also because
they serve as their mounts, and in consequence they appear as
their lower, animal halves. Because of its almost total uncon
sciousness, the animal has always symbolized the psychic sphere
in man which lies hidden in the darkness of the body's instinc
tual life. The hero rides the stallion, characterized by the even
(feminine) number 4; Princess A rides the mare who has only
three legs (3 = a masculine number). These numbers make it
clear that the transformation into animals has brought with it a
modification of sex character: the stallion has a feminine at
tribute, the mare a masculine one. Psychology can confirm this
development as follows: to the degree that a man is over
powered by the (collective) unconscious there is not only a more
unbridled intrusion of the instinctual sphere, but a certain
feminine character also makes its appearance, which I have
suggested should be called "anima." If, on the other hand, a
woman comes under the domination of the unconscious, the
darker side of her feminine nature emerges all the more
strongly, coupled with markedly masculine traits. These latter
are comprised under the term "animus." 62
445
5. According to the fairytale, however, the animal form of
the brother-sister pair is "unreal" and due simply to the magic
influence of the pagan hunter-god. If they were nothing but
animals, we could rest content with this interpretation. But
that would be to pass over in unmerited silence the singular
allusion to a modification of sex character. The white horses are
no ordinary horses: they are miraculous beasts with super
natural powers. Therefore the human figures out of which the
horses were magically conjured must likewise have had some
thing supernatural about them. The fairytale makes no com
ment here, but if our assumption is correct that the two animal
forms correspond to the subhuman components of hero and
princess, then it follows that the human forms—Prince and Prin
cess B—must correspond to their superhuman components. The
62
Cf. Emma Jung, "On the Nature of the Animus."
247
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
superhuman quality of the original swineherd is shown by the
fact that he becomes a hero, practically a half-god, since he does
not stay with his swine but climbs the world-tree, where he is
very nearly made its prisoner, like Wotan. Similarly, he could
not have become like the hunter if he did not have a certain
resemblance to him in the first place. In the same way the im
prisonment of Princess A on the top of the world-tree proves
her electness, and in so far as she shares the hunter's bed, as
stated by the tale, she is actually the bride of God.
446
It is these extraordinary forces of heroism and election,
bordering on the superhuman, which involve two quite ordi
nary humans in a superhuman fate. Accordingly, in the pro
fane w T orld a swineherd becomes a king, and a princess gets an
agreeable husband. But since, for fairytales, there is not only a
profane but also a magical world, human fate does not have
the final word. The fairytale therefore does not omit to point
out what happens in the world of magic. There too a prince and
princess have got into the power of the evil spirit, who is him
self in a tight corner from which he cannot extricate himself
without extraneous help. So the human fate that befalls the
swineherd and Princess A is paralleled in the world of magic.
But in so far as the hunter is a pagan God-image and thus
exalted above the world of heroes and paramours of the gods,
the parallelism goes beyond the merely magical into a divine
and spiritual sphere, where the evil spirit, the Devil himself—
or at least a devil—is bound by the spell of an equally mighty
or even mightier counter-principle indicated by the three nails.
This supreme tension of opposites, the mainspring of the whole
drama, is obviously the conflict between the upper and lower
triads, or, to put it in theological terms, between the Christian
God and the devil who has assumed the features of Wotan. 63
447
6. We must, it seems, start from this highest level if Ave want
to understand the story correctly, for the drama takes its rise
from the initial transgression of the evil spirit. The immediate
consequence of this is his crucifixion. In that distressing situa
tion he needs outside help, and as it is not forthcoming from
above, it can only be summoned from below. A young swine63 As regards the triadic nature of Wotan cf. Ninck, Wodan und germanischer
Schicksalsglaube, p. 14a. His horse is also described as, among other things,
three-legged.
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
448
449
herd, possessed with the boyish spirit of adventure, is reckless
and inquisitive enough to climb the world-tree. Had he fallen
and broken his neck, no doubt everybody would have said,
"What evil spirit could have given him the crazy idea of climb
ing up an enormous tree like that!" Nor would they have been
altogether wrong, for that is precisely what the evil spirit was
after. The capture of Princess A was a transgression in the
profane world, and the bewitching of the—as we may suppose—
semidivine broiher-sister pair was just such an enormity in the
magical world. We do not know, but it is possible, that this
heinous crime was committed before the bewitching of Princess
A. At any rate, both episodes point to a transgression of the
evil spirit in the magical world as well as in the profane.
It is assuredly not without a deeper meaning that the rescuer
or redeemer should be a swineherd, like the Prodigal Son. He
is of lowly origin and has this much in common with the
curious conception of the redeemer in alchemy. His first liberat
ing act is to deliver the evil spirit from the divine punishment
meted out to him. It is from this act, representing the first stage
of the lysis, that the whole dramatic tangle develops.
7. The moral of this story is in truth exceedingly odd. The
finale satisfies in so far as the swineherd and Princess A are
married and become the royal pair. Prince and Princess B like
wise celebrate their wedding, but this—in accordance with the
archaic prerogative of kings—takes the form of incest, which,
though somewhat repellent, must be regarded as more or less
habitual in semidivine circles. 64 But what, we may ask, happens
to the evil spirit, whose rescue from condign punishment sets
the whole thing in motion? The wicked hunter is trampled to
pieces by the horses, which presumably does no lasting damage
to a spirit. Apparently he vanishes without trace, but only
apparently, for he does after all leave a trace behind him,
namely a hard-won happiness in both the profane and the
magical world. Two halves of the quaternity, represented on
one side by the swineherd and Princess A and on the other by
64 The assumption that they are a brother-sister pair is supported by the fact that
the stallion addresses the mare as "sister." This may be just a figure of speech;
on the other hand sister means sister, whether we take it figuratively or nonfiguratively. Moreover, incest plays a significant part in mythology as well as in
alchemy.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Prince and Princess B, have each come together and united:
two marriage-pairs now confront one another, parallel but
otherwise divided, inasmuch as the one pair belongs to the
profane and the other to the magical world. But in spite of this
indubitable division, secret psychological connections, as we
have seen, exist between them which allow us to derive the one
pair from the other.
45°
Speaking in the spirit of the fairytale, which unfolds its
drama from the highest point, one would have to say that the
world of half-gods is anterior to the profane world and pro
duces it out of itself, just as the world of half-gods must be
thought of as proceeding from the world of gods. Conceived in
this way, the swineherd and Princess A are nothing less than
earthly simulacra of Prince and Princess B, who in their turn
would be the descendants of divine prototypes. Nor should we
forget that the horse-breeding witch belongs to the hunter as
his female counterpart, rather like an ancient Epona (the Celtic
goddess of horses). Unfortunately we are not told how the magi
cal conjuration into horses happened. But it is evident that the
witch had a hand in the game because both the horses were
raised from her stock and are thus, in a sense, her productions.
Hunter and witch form a pair—the reflection, in the nocturnalchthonic part of the magical world, of a divine parental pair.
The latter is easily recognized in the central Christian idea of
sponsus et sponsa, Christ and his bride, the Church.
451
If we wanted to explain the fairytale personalistically, the
attempt would founder on the fact that archetypes are not
whimsical inventions but autonomous elements of the uncon
scious psyche which were there before any invention was
thought of. They represent the unalterable structure of a psy
chic world whose "reality" is attested by the determining effects
it has upon the conscious mind. Thus, it is a significant psychic
reality that the human pair 65 is matched by another pair in the
unconscious, the latter pair being only in appearance a reflec
tion of the first. In reality the royal pair invariably comes first,
as an a priori, so that the human pair has far more the sig
nificance of an individual concretization, in space and time, of
65 Human in so far as the anima is replaced by a human person.
250
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
an eternal and primordial image—at least in its mental struc
ture, which is imprinted upon the biological continuum.
452
We could say, then, that the swineherd stands for the "ani
mal" man who has a soul-mate somewhere in the upper world.
By her royal birth she betrays her connection with the preexistent, semidivine pair. Looked at from this angle, the latter
stands for everything a man can become if only he climbs high
enough up the world-tree.86 For to the degree that the young
swineherd gains possession of the patrician, feminine half of
himself, he approximates to the pair of half-gods and lifts him
self into the sphere of royalty, which means universal validity.
We come across the same theme in Christian Rosencreutz's
Chymical Wedding, where the king's son must first free his
bride from the power of a Moor, to whom she has voluntarily
given herself as a concubine. The Moor represents the alchemi
cal nigredo in which the arcane substance lies hidden, an idea
that forms yet another parallel to our mythologem, or, as we
would say in psychological language, another variant of this
archetype.
453
As in alchemy, our fairytale describes the unconscious proc
esses that compensate the conscious, Christian situation. It de
picts the workings of a spirit who carries our Christian thinking
beyond the boundaries set by ecclesiastical concepts, seeking an
answer to questions which neither the Middle Ages nor the
present day have been able to solve. It is not difficult to see in
the image of the second royal pair a correspondence to the
ecclesiastical conception of bridegroom and bride, and in that
of the hunter and witch a distortion of it, veering towards an
atavistic, unconscious Wotanism. The fact that it is a German
fairytale makes the position particularly interesting, since this
same Wotanism was the psychological godfather of National
Socialism, a phenomenon which carried the distortion to the
lowest pitch before the eyes of the world.67 On the other hand,
the fairytale makes it clear that it is possible for a man to attain
totality, to become whole, only with the co-operation of the
spirit of darkness, indeed that the latter is actually a causa
eeThe
great tree corresponds to the arbor philosophica of the alchemists. The
meeting between an earthly human being and the anima, swimming down in the
shape of a mermaid, is to be found in the so-called "Ripley Scrowle." Cf. Psy
chology and Alchemy, fig. 257.
6? Cf. my "Wotan."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
instrumentalis of redemption and individuation. In utter per
version of this goal of spiritual development, to which all nature
aspires and which is also prefigured in Christian doctrine, Na
tional Socialism destroyed man's moral autonomy and set up
the nonsensical totalitarianism of the State. The fairytale tells
us how to proceed if we want to overcome the power of dark
ness: we must turn his own weapons against him, which natu
rally cannot be done if the magical underworld of the hunter
remains unconscious, and if the best men in the nation would
rather preach dogmatisms and platitudes than take the human
psyche seriously.
VI. CONCLUSION
454
When we consider the spirit in its archetypal form as it
appears to us in fairytales and dreams, it presents a picture that
differs strangely from the conscious idea of spirit, which is split
up into so many meanings. Spirit was originally a spirit in hu
man or animal form, a daimonion that came upon man from
without. But our material already shows traces of an expansion
of consciousness which has gradually begun to occupy that orig
inally unconscious territory and to transform those daimonia,
at least partially, into voluntary acts. Man conquers not only
nature, but spirit also, without realizing what he is doing. To
the man of enlightened intellect it seems like the correction of
a fallacy when he recognizes that what he took to be spirits is
simply the human spirit and ultimately his own spirit. All the
superhuman things, whether good or bad, that former ages
predicated of the daimonia, are reduced to "reasonable" pro
portions as though they were pure exaggeration, and everything
seems to be in the best possible order. But were the unanimous
convictions of the past really and truly only exaggerations? If
they were not, then the integration of the spirit means nothing
less than its demonization, since the superhuman spiritual agen
cies that were formerly tied up in nature are introjected into
human nature, thus endowing it with a power which extends
the bounds of the personality ad infinitum, in the most perilous
way. I put it to the enlightened rationalist: has his rational
252
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SPIRIT IN FAIRYTALES
155
reduction led to the beneficial control of matter and spirit? He
will point proudly to the advances in physics and medicine, to
the freeing of the mind from medieval stupidity and—as a wellmeaning Christian—to our deliverance from the fear of demons.
But we continue to ask: what have all our other cultural
achievements led to? The fearful answer is there before our
eyes: man has been delivered from no fear, a hideous night
mare lies upon the world. So far reason has failed lamentably,
and the very thing that everybody wanted to avoid rolls on in
ghastly progression. Man has achieved a wealth of useful gadg
ets, but, to offset that, he has torn open the abyss, and what will
become of him now—where can he make a halt? After the last
World War we hoped for reason: we go on hoping. But already
we are fascinated by the possibilities of atomic fission and prom
ise ourselves a Golden Age—the surest guarantee that the abomi
nation of desolation will grow to limitless dimensions. And
who or what is it that causes all this? It is none other than that
harmless (!), ingenious, inventive, and sweetly reasonable hu
man spirit who unfortunately is abysmally unconscious of the
demonism that still clings to him. Worse, this spirit does every
thing to avoid looking himself in the face, and we all help him
like mad. Only, heaven preserve us from psychology— that de
pravity might lead to self-knowledge! Rather let us have wars,
for which somebody else is always to blame, nobody seeing that
all the world is driven to do just what all the world flees from
in terror.
It seems to me, frankly, that former ages did not exaggerate,
that the spirit has not sloughed off its demonisms, and that
mankind, because of its scientific and technological develop
ment, has in increasing measure delivered itself over to the
danger of possession. True, the archetype of the spirit is capable
of working for good as well as for evil, but it depends upon
man's free—i.e., conscious—decision whether the good also will
be perverted into something satanic. Man's worst sin is uncon
sciousness, but it is indulged in with the greatest piety even by
those who should serve mankind as teachers and examples.
When shall we stop taking man for granted in this barbarous
manner and in all seriousness seek ways and means to exorcize
him, to rescue him from possession and unconsciousness, and
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
make this the most vital task of civilization? Can we not under
stand that all the outward tinkerings and improvements do not
touch man's inner nature, and that everything ultimately de
pends upon whether the man who wields the science and the
technics is capable of responsibility or not? Christianity has
shown us the way, but, as the facts bear witness, it has not
penetrated deeply enough below the surface. What depths of
despair are still needed to open the eyes of the world's re
sponsible leaders, so that at least they can refrain from leading
themselves into temptation?
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE
TRICKSTER-FIGURE 1
456
It is no light task for me to write about the figure of the
trickster in American Indian mythology within the confined
space of a commentary. When I first came across Adolf Bandelier's classic on this subject, The Delight Makers, many years
ago, I was struck by the European analogy of the carnival in the
medieval Church, with its reversal of the hierarchic order,
which is still continued in the carnivals held by student societies
today. Something of this contradictoriness also inheres in the
medieval description of the devil as simia dei (the ape of
God), and in his characterization in folklore as the "simpleton"
who is "fooled" or "cheated." A curious combination of typical
trickster motifs can be found in the alchemical figure of Mercurius; for instance, his fondness for sly jokes and malicious
pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, half ani
mal, half divine, his exposure to all kinds of tortures, and—
last but not least—his approximation to the figure of a saviour.
These qualities make Mercurius seem like a daemonic being
resurrected from primitive times, older even than the Greek
Hermes. His rogueries relate him in some measure to various
figures met with in folklore and universally known in fairytales:
Tom Thumb, Stupid Hans, or the buffoon-like Hanswurst,
who is an altogether negative hero and yet manages to achieve
through his stupidity what others fail to accomplish with their
best efforts. In Grimm's fairytale, the "Spirit Mercurius" lets
himself be outwitted by a peasant lad, and then has to buy his
freedom with the precious gilt of healing.
1 [Originally
published as part 5 of Der gottliche Schelm, by Paul Radin, with
commentaries by C. G. Jung and Karl Ke^nyi (Zurich, 1954). The present trans
lation then appeared in the English version of the volume: The Trickster: A
Study in American Indian Mythology (London and New York, 1956); it is repub
lished here with only minor revisions.—E DITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Since all mythical figures correspond to inner psychic experi
ences and originally sprang from them, it is not surprising to
find certain phenomena in the field of parapsychology which
remind us of the trickster. These are the phenomena connected
with poltergeists, and they occur at all times and places in the
ambience of pre-adolescent children. The malicious tricks
played by the poltergeist are as well known as the IOWt level of
his intelligence and the fatuity of his "communications." Ability
to change his shape seems also to be one of his characteristics, as
there are not a few reports of his appearance in animal form.
Since he has on occasion described himself as a soul in hell, the
motif of subjective suffering would seem not to be lacking
either. His universality is co-extensive, so to speak, with that of
shamanism, to which, as we know, the whole phenomenology of
spiritualism belongs. There is something of the trickster in the
character of the shaman and medicine-man, for he, too, often
plays malicious jokes on people, only to fall victim in his turn
to the vengeance of those whom he has injured. For this reason,
his profession sometimes puts him in peril of his life. Besides
that, the shamanistic techniques in themselves often cause the
medicine-man a good deal of discomfort, if not actual pain. At
all events the "making of a medicine-man" involves, in many
parts of the world, so much agony of body and soul that perma
nent psychic injuries may result. His "approximation to the
saviour" is an obvious consequence of this, in confirmation of
the mythological truth that the wounded wounder is the agent
of healing, and that the sufferer takes away suffering.
458
These mythological features extend even to the highest
regions of man's spiritual development. If we consider, for
example, the daemonic features exhibited by Yahweh in the
Old Testament, we shall find in them not a few reminders of the
unpredictable behaviour of the trickster, of his senseless orgies
of destruction and his self-imposed sufferings, together wTith
the same gradual development into a saviour and his simul
taneous humanization. It is just this transformation of the
meaningless into the meaningful that reveals the trickster's
compensatory relation to the "saint." In the early Middle Ages,
this led to some strange ecclesiastical customs based on memo
ries of the ancient saturnalia. Mostly they \vere celebrated on
the days immediately following the birth of Christ—that is, in
457
256
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
459
the New Year—with singing and dancing. The dances were the
originally harmless tripudia of the priests, lower clergy, chil
dren, and subdeacons and took place in church. An episcopus
puerorum (children's bishop) was elected on Innocents' Day and
dressed in pontifical robes. Amid uproarious rejoicings he paid
an official visit to the palace of the archbishop and bestowed
the episcopal blessing from one of the windows. The same thing
happened at the tripudium hypodiaconorum, and at the dances
for other priestly grades. By the end of the twelfth century, the
subdeacons' dance had degenerated into a real festum stultorum (fools' feast). A report from the year 1198 says that at
the Feast of the Circumcision in Notre Dame, Paris, "so many
abominations and shameful deeds" were committed that the
holy place was desecrated "not only by smutty jokes, but even
by the shedding of blood." In vain did Pope Innocent III in
veigh against the "jests and madness that make the clergy a
mockery," and the "shameless frenzy of their play-acting."
Two hundred and fifty years later (March 12, 1444), a letter from
the Theological Faculty of Paris to all the French bishops was
still fulminating against these festivals, at which "even the
priests and clerics elected an archbishop or a bishop or pope,
and named him the Fools' Pope" (fatuorum papam). "In the
very rnidst of divine service masqueraders with grotesque faces,
disguised as women, lions, and mummers, performed their
dances, sang indecent songs in the choir, ate their greasy food
from a corner of the altar near the priest celebrating mass, got
out their games of dice, burned a stinking incense made of old
shoe leather, and ran and hopped about all over the church." 2
It is not surprising that this veritable witches' sabbath was
uncommonly popular, and that it required considerable time
and effort to free the Church from this pagan heritage. 3
2 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. Kalendae, p. 1666. Here there is a note to the effect
that the French title "sou-diacres" means literally 'saturi diaconi' or 'diacres saouls'
(drunken deacons).
3 These customs seem to be directly modelled on the pagan feast known as
"Cervula" or "Cervulus." It took place on the kalends of January and was a kind
of New Year's festival, at which people exchanged strenae (itrennes, 'gifts'), dressed
up as animals or old women, and danced through the streets singing, to the
applause of the populace. According to Du Cange (s.v. cervulus), sacrilegious
songs were sung. This happened even in the immediate vicinity of St. Peter's in
Rome.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
460
In certain localities even the priests seem to have adhered to
the " libertas decembrica," as the Fools' Holiday was called, in
spite (or perhaps because?) of the fact that the older level of
consciousness could let itself rip on this happy occasion with all
the wildness, wantonness, and irresponsibility of paganism.4
These ceremonies, which still reveal the spirit of the trickster in
his original form, seem to have died out by the beginning of the
sixteenth century. At any rate, the various conciliar decrees
issued from 1581 to 1585 forbade only the festum puerorum
and the election of an episcopus puerorum.
4®1
Finally, we must also mention in this connection the festum
asinorum, which, so far as I know, was celebrated mainly in
France. Although considered a harmless festival in memory of
Mary's flight into Egypt, it was celebrated in a somewhat curious
manner which might easily have given rise to misunderstand
ings. In Beauvais, the ass procession went right into the church.5
At the conclusion of each part (Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) of
the high mass that followed, the whole congregation brayed,
that is, they all went "Y-a" like a donkey ("hac modulatione
hinham concludebantur"), A codex dating apparently from the
eleventh century says: "At the end of the mass, instead of the
words 'Ite missa est,' the priest shall bray three times iter hinhamabit), and instead of the words 'Deo gratias,' the congrega
tion shall answer Ύ-a' (hinham) three times."
462
Du Cange cites a hymn from this festival:
Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus
Pulcher et fortissimus
Sarcinis aptissimus.
Each verse was followed by the French refrain:
* Part of the festum fatuorum in many places was the still unexplained ballgame played by the priests and captained by the bishop or archbishop, "ut etiam
sese ad lusum pilae demittent" (that they also may indulge in the game of pelota).
Pila or pelota is the ball which the players throw to one another. See Du Cange,
s.v. Kalendae and pelota.
5 "PueIla1 quae cum asino a parte Evangelii prope aJtare collocabatur" (the girl
who stationed herself with the ass at the side of the altar where the gospel is
read). Du Cange, s.v. festum asinorum.
258
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez
Belle bouche rechignez
Vous aurez du foin assez
Et de l'avoine k plantez.
The hymn had nine verses, the last of which was:
Amen, dicas, Asine (hie genuflectebatur)
Jam satur de gramine.
Amen, amen, itera
Aspernare vetera.6
463
Du Cange says that the more ridiculous this rite seemed, the
greater the enthusiasm with which it was celebrated. In other
places the ass was decked with a golden canopy whose corners
were held "by distinguished canons"; the others present had to
"don suitably festive garments, as at Christmas." Since there
were certain tendencies to bring the ass into symbolic relation
ship with Christ, and since, from ancient times, the god of the
Jews was vulgarly conceived to be an ass—a prejudice which
extended to Christ himself,7 as is shown by the mock cruci
fixion scratched on the wall of the Imperial Cadet School on
the Palatine 8—the danger of theriomorphism lay uncomfortably
close. Even the bishops could do nothing to stamp out this cus
tom, until finally it had to be suppressed by the "auctoritas
supremi Senatus." The suspicion of blasphemy becomes quite
β Caetera instead of Vetera? [Trans, by A. S. B. Glover:
From the furthest Eastern clime
Came the Ass in olden time,
Comely, sturdy for the road,
Fit to bear a heavy load.
Sing then loudly, master Ass,
Let the tempting titbit pass:
You shall have no lack of hay
And of oats find good supply.
Say Amen, Amen, good ass, (here a
genuflection is made)
Now you've had your fill of grass;
Ancient paths are left behind:
Sing Amen with gladsome mind.]
7 Cf. also Tertullian, Apologeticus adversus gentes, XVI.
8 [Reproduced in Symbols of Transformation, pi. XLIII.—Editors.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
open in Nietzsche's "Ass Festival," which is a deliberately blas
phemous parody of the mass. 9
464
These medieval customs demonstrate the role of the trickster
to perfection, and, when they vanished from the precincts of
the Church, they appeared again on the profane level of Italian
theatricals, as those comic types who, often adorned with enor
mous ithyphallic emblems, entertained the far from prudish
public with ribaldries in true Rabelaisian style. Callot's engrav
ings have preserved these classical figures for posterity—the
Pulcinellas, Cucorognas, Chico Sgarras, and the like. 10
465
In picaresque tales, in carnivals and revels, in magic rites
of healing, in man's religious fears and exaltations, this phan
tom of the trickster haunts the mythology of all ages, sometimes
in quite unmistakable form, sometimes in strangely modulated
guise. 11 He is obviously a "psychologem," an archetypal psychic
structure of extreme antiquity. In his clearest manifestations he
is a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human
consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the
animal level. That this is how the trickster figure originated
can hardly be contested if we look at it from the causal and
historical angle. In psychology as in biology we cannot afford to
overlook or underestimate this question of origins, although the
answer usually tells us nothing about the functional meaning.
For this reason biology should never forget the question of pur
pose, for only by answering that can we get at the meaning of a
phenomenon. Even in pathology, where we are concerned with
lesions which have no meaning in themselves, the exclusively
causal approach proves to be inadequate, since there are a num
ber of pathological phenomena which only give up their mean
ing when we inquire into their purpose. And where we are
concerned with the normal phenomena of life, this question of
purpose takes undisputed precedence.
9
Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part. IV, ch. LXXVIII.
ίο I am thinking here of the series called "Balli di Sfessania." The name is prob
ably a reference to the Etrurian town of Fescenniai which was famous for its lewd
songs. Hence "Fescennina licentia" in Horace, Fescenninus being the equivalent of
0aXXt/c<5s.
n Cf. the article "Daily Paper Pantheon," by A. McGlashan, in The Lancet (1953).
p. 238, pointing out that the figures in comic-strips have remarkable archetypal
analogies.
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
466
When, therefore, a primitive or barbarous consciousness
forms a picture of itself on a much earlier level of development
and continues to do so for hundreds or even thousands of years,
undeterred by the contamination of its archaic qualities with
differentiated, highly developed mental products, then the
causal explanation is that the older the archaic qualities are, the
more conservative and pertinacious is their behaviour. One
simply cannot shake off the memory-image of things as they
were, and drags it along like a senseless appendage.
467
This explanation, which is facile enough to satisfy the ra
tionalistic requirements of our age, would certainly not meet
with the approval of the Winnebagos, the nearest possessors of
the trickster cycle. For them the myth is not in any sense a
remnant—it is far too amusing for that, and an object of un
divided enjoyment. For them it still "functions," provided that
they have not been spoiled by civilization. For them there is no
earthly reason to theorize about the meaning and purpose of
myths, just as the Christmas-tree seems no problem at all to the
naive European. For the thoughtful observer, however, both
trickster and Christmas-tree afford reason enough for reflection.
Naturally it depends very much on the mentality of the ob
server what he thinks about these things. Considering the crude
primitivity of the trickster cycle, it would not be surprising if
one saw in this myth simply the reflection of an earlier, rudi
mentary stage of consciousness, which is what the trickster ob
viously seems to be. 12
468
The only question that would need answering is whether
such personified reflections exist at all in empirical psychology.
As a matter of fact they do, and these experiences of split or
double personality actually form the core of the earliest psychopathological investigations. The peculiar thing about these
dissociations is that the split-off personality is not just a random
one, but stands in a complementary or compensatory relation
ship to the ego-personality. It is a personification of traits of
12 Earlier stages of consciousness seem to leave perceptible traces behind them.
For instance, the chakras of the Tantric system correspond by and large to the
regions where consciousness was earlier localized, anahata corresponding to the
breast region, manipura to the abdominal region, svadhistana to the bladder
region, and visuddha to the larynx and the speech-consciousness of modern man.
Cf. Avalon, The Serpent Power.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
character which are sometimes worse and sometimes better than
those the ego-personality possesses. A collective personification
like the trickster is the product of an aggregate of individuals
and is welcomed by each individual as something known to him,
which would not be the case if it were just an individual out
growth.
469
Now if the myth were nothing but an historical remnant,
one would have to ask why it has not long since vanished into
the great rubbish-heap of the past, and why it continues to make
its influence felt on the highest levels of civilization, even where,
on account of his stupidity and grotesque scurrility, the trickster
no longer plays the role of a "delight-maker." In many cultures
his figure seems like an old river-bed in which the water still
flows. One can see this best of all from the fact that the trickster
motif does not crop up only in its mythical form but appears just
as naively and authentically in the unsuspecting modern manwhenever, in fact, he feels himself at the mercy of annoying
"accidents" which thwart his will and his actions with appar
ently malicious intent. He then speaks of "hoodoos" and
"jinxes" or of the "mischievousness of the object." Here the
trickster is represented by counter-tendencies in the uncon
scious, and in certain cases by a sort of second personality, of a
puerile and inferior character, not unlike the personalities who
announce themselves at spiritualistic seances and cause all those
ineffably childish phenomena so typical of poltergeists. I have,
I think, found a suitable designation for this character-component when I called it the shadow.13 On the civilized level, it
is regarded as a personal "gaffe," "slip," "faux pas," etc., which
are then chalked up as defects of the conscious personality. We
are no longer aware that in carnival customs and the like there
are remnants of a collective shadow figure which prove that the
personal shadow is in part descended from a numinous collec
tive figure. This collective figure gradually breaks up under the
impact of civilization, leaving traces in folklore which are diffi
cult to recognize. But the main part of him gets personalized
and is made an object of personal responsibility.
47°
Radin's trickster cycle preserves the shadow in its pristine
mythological form, and thus points back to a very much earlier
13 The same idea can be found in the Church Father Irenaeus, who calls it the
"umbra." Adversus haereses, I, ii, 1.
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
stage of consciousness which existed before the birth of the
myth, when the Indian was still groping about in a similar men
tal darkness. Only when his consciousness reached a higher level
could he detach the earlier state from himself and objectify it,
that is, say anything about it. So long as his consciousness was
itself trickster-like, such a confrontation could obviously not
take place. It was possible only when the attainment of a newer
and higher level of consciousness enabled him to look back on
a lower and inferior state. It was only to be expected that a good
deal of mockery and contempt should mingle with this retro
spect, thus casting an even thicker pall over man's memories of
the past, which were pretty unedifying anyway. This phenome
non must have repeated itself innumerable times in the history
of his mental development. The sovereign contempt with
which our modern age looks back on the taste and intelligence
of earlier centuries is a classic example of this, and there is an
unmistakable allusion to the same phenomenon in the New
Testament, where we are told in Acts 17:30 that God looked
down from above (νπΐρώών, despictens) on the χρόνοι τψ αγνοίαs,
the times of ignorance (or unconsciousness).
47»
This attitude contrasts strangely with the still commoner
and more striking idealization of the past, which is praised not
merely as the "good old days" but as the Golden Age—and not
just by uneducated and superstitious people, but by all those
legions of theosophical enthusiasts who resolutely believe in
the former existence and lofty civilization of Atlantis.
472
Anyone who belongs to a sphere of culture that seeks the
perfect state somewhere in the past must feel very queerly in
deed when confronted by the figure of the trickster. He is a
forerunner of the saviour, and, like him, God, man, and animal
at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and
divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is
his unconsciousness. Because of it he is deserted by his (evi
dently human) companions, which seems to indicate that he has
fallen below their level of consciousness. He is so unconscious
of himself that his body is not a unity, and his two hands fight
each other. He takes his anus off and entrusts it with a special
task. Even his sex is optional despite its phallic qualities: he
can turn himself into a woman and bear children. From his
penis he makes all kinds of useful plants. This is a reference to
263
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
his original nature as a Creator, for the world is made from the
body of a god.
473
On the other hand he is in many respects stupider than the
animals, and gets into one ridiculous scrape after another. Al
though he is not really evil, he does the most atrocious things
from sheer unconsciousness and unrelatedness. His imprison
ment in animal unconsciousness is suggested by the episode
where he gets his head caught inside the skull of an elk, and the
next episode shows how he overcomes this condition by im
prisoning the head of a hawk inside his own rectum. True, he
sinks back into the former condition immediately afterwards,
by falling under the ice, and is outwitted time after time by the
animals, but in the end he succeeds in tricking the cunning
coyote, and this brings back to him his saviour nature. The
trickster is a primitive "cosmic" being of divine-animal nature,
on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman
qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his
unreason and unconsciousness. He is no match for the animals
either, because of his extraordinary clumsiness and lack of in
stinct. These defects are the marks of his human nature, which
is not so well adapted to the environment as the animal's but,
instead, has prospects of a much higher development of con
sciousness based on a considerable eagerness to learn, as is duly
emphasized in the myth.
474
What the repeated telling of the myth signifies is the thera
peutic anamnesis of contents which, for reasons still to be dis
cussed, should never be forgotten for long. If they were nothing
but the remnants of an inferior state it would be understandable
if man turned his attention away from them, feeling that their
reappearance was a nuisance. This is evidently by no means the
case, since the trickster has been a source of amusement right
down to civilized times, where he can still be recognized in the
carnival figures of Pulcinella and the clown. That is one im
portant reason for his still continuing to function. But it is
not the only one, and certainly not the reason why this reflec
tion of an extremely primitive state of consciousness solidified
into a mythological personage. Mere vestiges of an early state
that is dying out usually lose their energy at an increasing rate,
otherwise they would never disappear. The last thing we would
expect is that they would have the strength to solidify into a
264
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
475
mythological figure with its own cycle of legends—unless, of
course, they received energy from outside, in this case from a
higher level of consciousness or from sources in the uncon
scious which are not yet exhausted. To take a legitimate parallel
from the psychology of the individual, namely the appearance
of an impressive shadow figure antagonistically confronting a
personal consciousness: this figure does not appear merely be
cause it still exists in the individual, but because it rests on a
dynamism whose existence can only be explained in terms of his
actual situation, for instance because the shadow is so disagree
able to his ego-consciousness that it has to be repressed into the
unconscious. This explanation does not quite meet the case
here, because the trickster obviously represents a vanishing level
of consciousness which increasingly lacks the power to take
express and assert itself. Furthermore, repression would prevent
it from vanishing, because repressed contents are the very ones
that have the best chance of survival, as we know from experi
ence that nothing is corrected in the unconscious. Lastly,
the story of the trickster is not in the least disagreeable to the
Winnebago consciousness or incompatible with it but, on the
contrary, pleasurable and therefore not conducive to repres
sion. It looks, therefore, as if the myth were actively sustained
and fostered by consciousness. This may well be so, since that
is the best and most successful method of keeping the shadow
figure conscious and subjecting it to conscious criticism. Al
though, to begin with, this criticism has more the character of a
positive evaluation, we may expect that with the progressive
development of consciousness the cruder aspects of the myth
will gradually fall away, even if the danger of its rapid disap
pearance under the stress of white civilization did not exist. We
have often seen how certain customs, originally cruel or obscene,
became mere vestiges in the course of time. 14
The process of rendering this motif harmless takes an ex
tremely long time, as its history shows; one can still detect
traces of it even at a high level of civilization. Its longevity
could also be explained by the strength and vitality of the state
of consciousness described in the myth, and by the secret attracFor instance, the ducking of the "Ueli" (from Udalricus = Ulrich, yokel, oaf,
fool) in Basel during the second half of January was, if I remember correctly,
forbidden by the police in the i86o's, after one of the victims died of pneumonia.
265
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
tion and fascination this has for the conscious mind. Although
purely causal hypotheses in the biological sphere are not as a
rule very satisfactory, due weight must nevertheless be given to
the fact that in the case of the trickster a higher level of con
sciousness has covered up a lower one, and that the latter was
already in retreat. His recollection, however, is mainly due to
the interest which the conscious mind brings to bear on him,
the inevitable concomitant being, as we have seen, the gradual
civilizing, i.e., assimilation, of a primitive daemonic figure who
was originally autonomous and even capable of causing posses
sion.
476
To supplement the causal approach by a final one therefore
enables us to arrive at more meaningful interpretations not
only in medical psychology, where we are concerned with in
dividual fantasies originating in the unconscious, but also in the
case of collective fantasies, that is myths and fairytales.
477
As Radin points out, the civilizing process begins within the
framework of the trickster cycle itself, and this is a clear indica
tion that the original state has been overcome. At any rate the
marks of deepest unconsciousness fall away from him; instead of
acting in a brutal, savage, stupid, and senseless fashion, the trick
ster's behaviour towards the end of the cycle becomes quite use
ful and sensible. The devaluation of his earlier unconsciousness
is apparent even in the myth, and one wonders what has hap
pened to his evil qualities. The naive reader may imagine
that when the dark aspects disappear they are no longer there
in reality. But that is not the case at all, as experience shows.
What actually happens is that the conscious mind is then able
to free itself from the fascination of evil and is no longer
obliged to live it compulsively. The darkness and the evil have
not gone up in smoke, they have merely withdrawn into the
unconscious owing to loss of energy, where they remain uncon
scious so long as all is well with the conscious. But i£ the con
scious should find itself in a critical or doubtful situation, then
it soon becomes apparent that the shadow has not dissolved into
nothing but is only waiting for a favourable opportunity to
reappear as a projection upon one's neighbour. If this trick is
successful, there is immediately created between them that
world of primordial darkness where everything that is character
istic of the trickster can happen—even on the highest plane of
266
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
civilization. The best examples of these "monkey tricks," as
popular speech aptly and truthfully sums up this state of affairs
in which everything goes wrong and nothing intelligent hap
pens except by mistake at the last moment, are naturally to be
found in politics.
478
The so-called civilized man has forgotten the trickster. He
remembers him only figuratively
and metaphorically, when,
irritated by his own ineptitude, he speaks of fate playing tricks
on him or of things being bewitched. He never suspects that
his own hidden and apparently harmless shadow has qualities
whose dangerousness exceeds his wildest dreams. As soon as
people get together in masses and submerge the individual, the
shadow is mobilized, and, as history shows, may even be per
sonified and incarnated.
479
The disastrous idea that everything comes to the human psy
che from outside and that it is born a tabula rasa is responsible
for the erroneous belief that under normal circumstances the in
dividual is in perfect order. He then looks to the State for salva
tion, and makes society pay for his inefficiency. He thinks the
meaning of existence would be discovered if food and clothing
were delivered to him gratis on his own doorstep, or if every
body possessed an automobile. Such are the puerilities that rise
up in place of an unconscious shadow and keep it unconscious.
As a result of these prejudices, the individual feels totally de
pendent on his environment and loses all capacity for introspec
tion. In this way his code of ethics is replaced by a knowledge
of what is permitted or forbidden or ordered. How, under these
circumstances, can one expect a soldier to subject an order re
ceived from a superior to ethical scrutiny? He has not yet made
the discovery that he might be capable of spontaneous ethical
impulses, and of performing them—even when no one is look
ing.
480
From this point of view we can see why the myth of the
trickster was preserved and developed: like many other myths,
it was supposed to have a therapeutic effect. It holds the earlier
low intellectual and moral level before the eyes of the more
highly developed individual, so that he shall not forget how
things looked yesterday. We like to imagine that something
which we do not understand does not help us in any way. But
that is not always so. Seldom does a man understand with his
267
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
head alone, least of all when he is a primitive. Because of its
numinosity the myth has a direct effect on the unconscious, no
matter whether it is understood or not. The fact that its re
peated telling has not long since become obsolete can, I believe,
be explained by its usefulness. The explanation is rather diffi
cult because two contrary tendencies are at work: the desire on
the one hand to get out of the earlier condition and on the
other hand not to forget it. 15 Apparently Radin has also felt this
difficulty, for he says: "Viewed psychologically, it might be con
tended that the history of civilization is largely the account of
the attempts of man to forget his transformation from an ani
mal into a human being." 16 A few pages further on he says (with
reference to the Golden Age): "So stubborn a refusal to forget is
not an accident." 17 And it is also no accident that we are forced
to contradict ourselves as soon as we try to formulate man's
paradoxical attitude to myth. Even the most enlightened of us
will set up a Christmas-tree for his children without having the
least idea what this custom means, and is invariably disposed to
nip any attempt at interpretation in the bud. It is really aston
ishing to see how many so-called superstitions are rampant
nowadays in town and country alike, but if one took hold of
the individual and asked him, loudly and clearly, "Do you be
lieve in ghosts? in witches? in spells and magic?" he would deny
it indignantly. It is a hundred to one he has never heard of
such things and thinks it all rubbish. But in secret he is all for
it, just like a jungle-dweller. The public knows very little of
these things anyway, for everyone is convinced that in our en
lightened society that kind of superstition has long since been
eradicated, and it is part of the general convention to act as
though one had never heard of such things, not to mention be
lieving in them.
481
But nothing is ever lost, not even the blood pact with the
devil. Outwardly it is forgotten, but inwardly not at all. We act
like the natives on the southern slopes of Mount Elgon, in East
Africa, one of whom accompanied me part of the way into the
bush. At a fork in the path we came upon a brand new "ghost
trap," beautifully got up like a little hut, near the cave where
15 Not to forget something means keeping it in consciousness. If the enemy disap
pears from my field of vision, then he may possibly be behind me—and even more
dangerous.
16 Radin, The World of Primitive Man, p. 3.
17 Ibid., p. 5.
268
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
he lived with his family. I asked him if he had made it. He
denied it with all the signs of extreme agitation, asserting that
only children would make such a "ju-ju." Whereupon he gave
the hut a kick, and the whole thing fell to pieces.
482
This is exactly the reaction we can observe in Europe today.
Outwardly people are more or less civilized, but inwardly they
are still primitives. Something in man is profoundly disinclined
to give up his beginnings, and something else believes it has
long since got beyond all that. This contradiction was once
brought home to me in the most drastic manner when I was
watching a "Strudel" (a sort of local witch-doctor) taking the
spell off a stable. The stable was situated immediately beside
the Gotthard railway line, and several international expresses
sped past during the ceremony. Their occupants would hardly
have suspected that a primitive ritual was being performed a
few yards away.
483
The conflict between the two dimensions of consciousness is
simply an expression of the polaristic structure of the psyche,
which like any other energic system is dependent on the tension
of opposites. That is also why there are no general psychological
propositions which could not just as well be reversed; indeed,
their reversibility proves their validity. We should never forget
that in any psychological discussion we are not saying anything
about the psyche, but that the psyche is always speaking about
itself. It is no use thinking we can ever get beyond the psyche
by means of the "mind," even though the mind asserts that it is
not dependent on the psyche. How could it prove that? We can
say, if we like, that one statement comes from the psyche, is
psychic and nothing but psychic, and that another comes from
the mind, is "spiritual" and therefore superior to the psychic
one. Both are mere assertions based on the postulates of belief.
8
44
The fact is, that this old trichotomous hierarchy of psychic
contents (hylic, psychic, and pneumatic) represents the polar
istic structure of the psyche, which is the only immediate object
of experience. The unity of our psychic nature lies ih the
middle, just as the living unity of the waterfall appears in the
dynamic connection between above and below. Thus, the living
effect of the myth is experienced when a higher consciousness,
rejoicing in its freedom and independence, is confronted by the
autonomy of a mythological figure and yet cannot flee from its
269
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
485
fascination, but must pay tribute to the overwhelming impres
sion. The figure works, because secretly it participates in the
observer's psyche and appears as its reflection, though it is not
recognized as such. It is split off from his consciousness and
consequently behaves like an autonomous personality. The
trickster is a collective shadow figure, a summation of all the in
ferior traits of character in individuals. And since the individual
shadow is never absent as a component of personality, the col
lective figure can construct itself out of it continually. Not
always, of course, as a mythological figure, but, in consequence
of the increasing repression and neglect of the original mythologems, as a corresponding projection on other social groups and
nations.
If we take the trickster as a parallel of the individual shadow,
then the question arises whether that trend towards meaning,
which we saw in the trickster myth, can also be observed in the
subjective and personal shadow. Since this shadow frequently
appears in the phenomenology of dreams as a well-defined fig
ure, we can answer this question positively: the shadow, al
though by definition a negative figure, sometimes has certain
clearly discernible traits and associations which point to a quite
different background. It is as though he were hiding meaning
ful contents under an unprepossessing exterior. Experience con
firms this; and what is more important, the things that are
hidden usually consist of increasingly numinous figures. The
one standing closest behind the shadow is the anima,18 who
is endowed with considerable powers of fascination and pos
session. She often appears in rather too youthful form, and
hides in her turn the powerful archetype of the wise old man
(sage, magician, king, etc.). The series could be extended, but
it would be pointless to do so, as psychologically one only
understands what one has experienced oneself. The concepts of
complex psychology are, in essence, not intellectual formulais By the metaphor "standing behind the shadow" I am attempting to illustrate
the fact that, to the degree in which the shadow is recognized and integrated,
the problem of the anima, i.e., of relationship, is constellated. It is understand
able that the encounter with the shadow should have an enduring effect on the
relations of the ego to the inside and outside world, since the integration of the
shadow brings about an alteration of personality. Cf. Aion, Part II of this vol.,
pars. igff.
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE
tions but names for certain areas of experience, and though
they can be described they remain dead and irrepresentable to
anyone who has not experienced them. Thus, I have noticed
that people usually have not much difficulty in picturing to
themselves what is meant by the shadow, even if they would
have preferred instead a bit of Latin or Greek jargon that
sounds more "scientific." But it costs them enormous difficulties
to understand what the anima is. They accept her easily enough
when she appears in novels or as a film star, but she is not
understood at all when it comes to seeing the role she plays in
their own lives, because she sums up everything that a man can
never get the better of and never finishes coping with. There
fore it remains in a perpetual state of emotionality which must
not be touched. The degree of unconsciousness one meets with
in this connection is, to put it mildly, astounding. Hence it is
practically impossible to get a man who is afraid of his own femi
ninity to understand what is meant by the anima.
486
Actually, it is not surprising that this should be so, since
even the most rudimentary insight into the shadow sometimes
causes the greatest difficulties for the modern European. But
since the shadow is the figure nearest his consciousness and the
least explosive one, it is also the first component of personality
to come up in an analysis of the unconscious. A minatory and
ridiculous figure, he stands at the very beginning of the way of
individuation, posing the deceptively easy riddle of the Sphinx,
or grimly demanding answer to a "quaestio crocodilina." 19
487
If, at the end of the trickster myth, the saviour is hinted at,
this comforting premonition or hope means that some calamity
or other has happened and been consciously understood. Only
out of disaster can the longing for the saviour arise—in other
words, the recognition and unavoidable integration of the
shadow create such a harrowing situation that nobody but a
saviour can undo the tangled web of fate. In the case of the in
dividual, the problem constellated by the shadow is answered
on the plane of the anima, that is, through relatedness. In the
19 A crocodile stole a child from its mother. On being asked to give it back to
her, the crocodile replied that he would grant her wish if she could give a true
answer to his question: "Shall I give the child back?" If she answers "Yes," it is
not true, and she won't get the child back. If she answers "No," it is again not
true, so in either case the mother loses the child.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
history of the collective as in the history of the individual,
everything depends on the development of consciousness. This
gradually brings liberation from imprisonment in αγνοία, 'un
consciousness,' 20 and is therefore a bringer of light as well as of
healing,
488
As in its collective, mythological form, so also the individual
shadow contains within it the seed of an enantiodromia, of a
conversion into its opposite.
20 Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, passim.
VI
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS,
AND INDIVIDUATION
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS
OF INDIVIDUATION
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION1
4g9
The relation between the conscious and the unconscious on
the one hand, and the individuation process on the other, are
problems that arise almost regularly during the later stages of
analytical treatment. By "analytical" I mean a procedure that
takes account of the existence of the unconscious. These prob
lems do not arise in a procedure based on suggestion. A few
preliminary words may not be out of place in order to explain
what is meant by "individuation."
49°
I use the term "individuation" to denote the process by
which a person becomes a psychological "in-dividual," that is,
a separate, indivisible unity or "whole." 2 It is generally as
sumed that consciousness is the whole of the psychological in
dividual. But knowledge of the phenomena that can only be
explained on the hypothesis of unconscious psychic processes
makes it doubtful whether the ego and its contents are in fact
identical with the "whole." If unconscious processes exist at all,
they must surely belong to the totality of the individual, even
though they are not components of the conscious ego. If they
were part of the ego they would necessarily be conscious, be
cause everything that is directly related to the ego is conscious.
Consciousness can even be equated with the relation between
the ego and the psychic contents. But unconscious phenomena
1 [Originally written in English as "The Meaning of Individuation," the intro
ductory chapter of The Integration of the Personality (New York, 1939; London,
1940), a collection of papers otherwise translated by Stanley Dell. Professor Jung
afterward rewrote the paper, with considerable revision, in German and published
it as "Bewusstsein, Unbewusstes und Individuation," Zentralblatt filr Psychotherapie und ihre Grenzgebiete (Leipzig), XI (1939): 5, 257—7°. The original
English version was slightly longer, owing to material which Mr. Dell edited into
it from other writings of Jung's, for the special requirements of the Integration
volume. It is the basis of the present version, together with the 1939 German
version.—EDITORS.]
2 Modem physicists (Louis de Broglie, for instance) use instead of this the concept
of something "discontinuous."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
are so little related to the ego that most people do not hesitate
to deny their existence outright. Nevertheless, they manifest
themselves in an individual's behaviour. An attentive observer
can detect them without difficulty, while the observed person
remains quite unaware of the fact that he is betraying his most
secret thoughts or even things he has never thought consciously.
It is, however, a great prejudice to suppose that something we
have never thought consciously does not exist in the psyche.
There is plenty of evidence to show that consciousness is very
far from covering the psyche in its totality. Many things occur
semiconsciously, and a great many more remain entirely un
conscious. Thorough investigation of the phenomena of dual
and multiple personalities, for instance, has brought to light a
mass of material with observations to prove this point. (I would
refer the reader to the writings of Pierre Janet, Theodore
Flournoy, Morton Prince, and others. 3 )
491
The importance of such phenomena has made a deep im
pression on medical psychology, because they give rise to all
sorts of psychic and physiological symptoms. In these circum
stances, the assumption that the ego expresses the totality of the
psyche has become untenable. It is, on the contrary, evident
that the whole must necessarily include not only consciousness
but the illimitable field of unconscious occurrences as well, and
that the ego can be no more than the centre of the field of con
sciousness.
492
You will naturally ask whether the unconscious possesses a
centre too. I would hardly venture to assume that there is in
the unconscious a ruling principle analogous to the ego. As a
matter of fact, everything points to the contrary. If there were
such a centre, we could expect almost regular signs of its ex
istence. Cases of dual personality would then be frequent oc
currences instead of rare curiosities. As a rule, unconscious
phenomena manifest themselves in fairly chaotic and unsys
tematic form. Dreams, for instance, show no apparent order
and no tendency to systematization, as they would have to do if
there were a personal consciousness at the back of them. The
philosophers Carus and von Hartmann treat the unconscious
as a metaphysical principle, a sort of universal mind, without
any trace of personality or ego-consciousness, and similarly
S [See also Jung's Psychiatric Studies, index, s. w.—EDITORS.]
276
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
Schopenhauer's "Will" is without an ego. Modern psychologists,
too, regard the unconscious as an egoless function below the
threshold of consciousness. Unlike the philosophers, they tend
to derive its subliminal functions from the conscious mind.
Janet thinks that there is a certain weakness of consciousness
which is unable to hold all the psychic processes together.
Freud, on the other hand, favours the idea of conscious factors
that suppress certain incompatible tendencies. Much can be
said for both theories, since there are numerous cases where a
weakness of consciousness actually causes certain contents to
fall below the threshold, or where disagreeable contents are
repressed. It is obvious that such careful observers as Janet and
Freud would not have constructed theories deriving the un
conscious mainly from conscious sources had they been able to
discover traces of an independent personality or of an autono
mous will in the manifestations of the unconscious.
493
If it were true that the unconscious consists of nothing but
contents accidentally deprived of consciousness but otherwise
indistinguishable from the conscious material, then one could
identify the ego more or less with the totality of the psyche. But
actually the situation is not quite so simple. Both theories are
based mainly on observations in the field of neurosis. Neither
Janet nor Freud had any specifically psychiatric experience. If
they had, they would surely have been struck by the fact that
the unconscious displays contents that are utterly different from
conscious ones, so strange, indeed, that nobody can understand
them, neither the patient himself nor his doctors. The patient
is inundated by a flood of thoughts that are as strange to him as
they are to a normal person. That is why we call him "crazy":
we cannot understand his ideas. We understand something only
if we have the necessary premises for doing so. But here the
premises are just as remote from our consciousness as they were
from the mind of the patient before he went mad. Otherwise he
would never have become insane.
494
There is, in fact, no field directly known to us from which
we could derive certain pathological ideas. It is not a question of
more or less normal contents that became unconscious just by
accident. They are, on the contrary, products whose nature is at
first completely baffling. They differ in every respect from
neurotic material, which cannot be said to be at all bizarre. The
277
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
material of a neurosis is understandable in human terms, but
that of a psychosis is not. 4
495
This peculiar psychotic material cannot be derived from the
conscious mind, because the latter lacks the premises which
would help to explain the strangeness of the ideas. Neurotic
contents can be integrated without appreciable injury to the
ego, but psychotic ideas cannot. They remain inaccessible, and
ego-consciousness is more or less swamped by them. They even
show a distinct tendency to draw the ego into their "system."
496
Such cases indicate that under certain conditions the un
conscious is capable of taking over the role of the ego. The con
sequence of this exchange is insanity and confusion, because
the unconscious is not a second personality with organized and
centralized functions but in all probability a decentralized con
geries of psychic processes. However, nothing produced by the
human mind lies absolutely outside the psychic realm. Even
the craziest idea must correspond to something in the psyche.
We cannot suppose that certain minds contain elements that do
not exist at all in other minds. Nor can we assume that the
unconscious is capable of becoming autonomous only in certain
people, namely in those predisposed to insanity. It is very much
more likely that the tendency to autonomy is a more or less
general peculiarity of the unconscious. Mental disorder is, in a
sense, only one outstanding example of a hidden but none the
less general condition. This tendency to autonomy shows itself
above all in affective states, including those of normal people.
When in a state of violent affect one says or does things which
exceed the ordinary. Not much is needed: love and hate, joy
and grief, are often enough to make the ego and the uncon
scious change places. Very strange ideas indeed can take pos
session o£ otherwise healthy people on such occasions. Groups,
communities, and even whole nations can be seized in this way
by psychic epidemics.
497
The autonomy of the unconscious therefore begins where
emotions are generated. Emotions are instinctive, involuntary
reactions which upset the rational order of consciousness by
their elemental outbursts. AfiEects are not "made" or wilfully
* By this I mean only certain cases of schizophrenia, such as the famous Schreber
case (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness) or the case published by Nelken ("Analytische Beobachtungen iiber Phantasien eines Schizophrenen," 1912)·
278
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
produced; they simply happen. In a state of affect a trait of
character sometimes appears which is strange even to the per
son concerned, or hidden contents may irrupt involuntarily.
The more violent an affect the closer it comes to the pathologi
cal, to a condition in which the ego-consciousness is thrust aside
by autonomous contents that were unconscious before. So long
as the unconscious is in a dormant condition, it seems as if there
were absolutely nothing in this hidden region. Hence we are
continually surprised when something unknown suddenly ap
pears "from nowhere." Afterwards, of course, the psychologist
comes along and shows that things had to happen as they did for
this or that reason. But who could have said so beforehand?
498
We call the unconscious "nothing," and yet it is a reality
in potentia. The thought we shall think, the deed we shall do,
even the fate we shall lament tomorrow, all lie unconscious in
our today. The unknown in us which the affect uncovers was
always there and sooner or later would have presented itself to
consciousness. Hence we must always reckon with the presence
of things not yet discovered. These, as I have said, may be un
known quirks of character. But possibilities of future develop
ment may also come to light in this way, perhaps in just such
an outburst of affect which sometimes radically alters the whole
situation. The unconscious has a Janus-face: on one side its
contents point back to a preconscious, prehistoric world of in
stinct, while on the other side it potentially anticipates the
future—precisely because of the instinctive readiness for action
of the factors that determine man's fate. If we had complete
knowledge of the ground plan lying dormant in an individual
from the beginning, his fate would be in large measure pre
dictable.
499
Now, to the extent that unconscious tendencies—be they
backward-looking images or forward-looking anticipationsappear in dreams, dreams have been regarded, in all previous
ages, less as historical regressions than as anticipations of the
future, and rightly so. For everything that will be happens on
the basis of what has been, and of what—consciously or uncon
sciously—still exists as a memory-trace. In so far as no man is
born totally new, but continually repeats the stage of develop
ment last reached by the species, he contains unconsciously, as
an a priori datum, the entire psychic structure developed both
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
s00
upwards and downwards by his ancestors in the course of the
ages. That is what gives the unconscious its characteristic "his
torical" aspect, but it is at the same time the sine qua non for
shaping the future. For this reason it is often very difficult to
decide whether an autonomous manifestation of the uncon
scious should be interpreted as an effect (and therefore histori
cal) or as an aim (and therefore teleological and anticipatory).
The conscious mind thinks as a rule without regard to ancestral
preconditions and without taking into account the influence
this a priori factor has on the shaping of the individual's fate.
Whereas we think in periods of years, the unconscious thinks
and lives in terms of millennia. So when something happens
that seems to us an unexampled novelty, it is generally a very
old story indeed. We still forget, like children, what happened
yesterday. We are still living in a wonderful new world where
man thinks himself astonishingly new and "modern." This is
unmistakable proof of the youthfulness of human conscious
ness, which has not yet grown aware of its historical antecedents.
As a matter of fact, the "normal" person convinces me far
more of the autonomy of the unconscious than does the insane
person. Psychiatric theory can always take refuge behind real
or alleged organic disorders of the brain and thus detract from
the importance of the unconscious. But such a view is no longer
applicable when it comes to normal humanity. What one sees
happening in the world is not just a "shadowy vestige of ac
tivities that were once conscious," but the expression of a living
psychic condition that still exists and always will exist. Were
that not so, one might well be astonished. But it is precisely
those who give least credence to the autonomy of the uncon
scious who are the most surprised by it. Because of its youth
fulness and vulnerability, our consciousness tends to make light
of the unconscious. This is understandable enough, for a young
man should not let himself be overawed by the authority of his
parents if he wants to start something on his own account. His
torically as well as individually, our consciousness has developed
out of the darkness and somnolence of primordial unconscious
ness. There were psychic processes and functions long before
any ego-consciousness existed. "Thinking" existed long before
man was able to say: "I am conscious of thinking."
280
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
501
The primitive "perils of the soul" consist mainly of dangers
to consciousness. Fascination, bewitchment, "loss of soul," pos
session, etc. are obviously phenomena of the dissociat'on and
suppression of consciousness caused by unconscious contents.
Even civilized man is not yet entirely free of the darkness of
primeval times. The unconscious is the mother of conscious
ness. Where there is a mother there is also a father, yet he seems
to be unknown. Consciousness, in the pride of its youth, may
deny its father, but it cannot deny its mother. That would be
too unnatural, for one can see in every child how hesitantly and
slowly its ego-consciousness evolves out of a fragmentary con
sciousness lasting for single moments only, and how these
islands gradually emerge from the total darkness of mere instinctuali ty.
5<«
Consciousness grows out of an unconscious psyche which is
older than it, and which goes on functioning together with it or
even in spite of it. Although there are numerous cases of con
scious contents becoming unconscious again (through being
repressed, for instance), the unconscious as a whole is far from
being a mere remnant of consciousness. Or are the psychic
functions of animals Temnants of consciousness?
5°i
As I have said, there is little hope of our finding in the un
conscious an order equivalent to that of the ego. It certainly
does not look as if we were likely to discover an unconscious
ego-personality, something in the nature of a Pythagorean
"counter-earth." Nevertheless, we cannot overlook the fact that,
just as consciousness arises from the unconscious, the ego-centre,
too, crystallizes out of a dark depth in which it was somehow
contained in potentia. Just as a human mother can only produce
a human child, whose deepest nature lay hidden during its
potential existence within her, so we are practically compelled
to believe that the unconscious cannot be an entirely chaotic
accumulation of instincts and images. There must be some
thing to hold it together and give expression to the whole. Its
centre cannot possibly be the ego, since the ego was born out of
it into consciousness and turns its back on the unconscious,
seeking to shut it out as much as possible. Or can it be that the
unconscious loses its centre with the birth of the ego? In that
case we would expect the ego to be far superior to the uncon
scious in influence and importance. The unconscious would
281
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
then follow meekly in the footsteps of the conscious, and that
would be just what we wish.
5<>4
Unfortunately, the facts show the exact opposite: conscious
ness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these
are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking. Also, it
frequently happens that unconscious motives overrule our con
scious decisions, especially in matters of vital importance.
Indeed, the fate of the individual is largely dependent on un
conscious factors. Careful investigation shows how very much
our conscious decisions depend on the undisturbed functioning
of memory. But memory often suffers from the disturbing in
terference of unconscious contents. Moreover, it functions as a
rule automatically. Ordinarily it uses the bridges of association,
but often in such an extraordinary way that another thorough
investigation of the whole process of memory-reproduction is
needed in order to find out how certain memories managed to
reach consciousness at all. And sometimes these bridges can
not be found. In such cases it is impossible to dismiss the
hypothesis of the spontaneous activity of the unconscious. An
other example is intuition, which is chiefly dependent on un
conscious processes of a very complex nature. Because of this
peculiarity, I have defined intuition as "perception via the un
conscious."
5°5
Normally the unconscious collaborates with the conscious
without friction or disturbance, so that one is not even aware
of its existence. But when an individual or a social group
deviates too far from their instinctual foundations, they then
experience the full impact of unconscious forces. The collabora
tion of the unconscious is intelligent and purposive, and even
when it acts in opposition to consciousness its expression is still
compensatory in an intelligent way, as if it were trying to re
store the lost balance.
506
There are dreams and visions of such an impressive chararacter that some people refuse to admit that they could have
originated in an unconscious psyche. They prefer to assume
that such phenomena derive from a sort of "superconsciousness." Such people make a distinction between a quasi-physio
logical or instinctive unconscious and a psychic sphere or layer
"above" consciousness, which they style the "superconscious."
As a matter of fact, this psyche, which in Indian philosophy is
282
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
called the "higher" consciousness, corresponds to what we in
the West call the "unconscious." Certain dreams, visions, and
mystical experiences do, however, suggest the existence of a
consciousness in the unconscious. But, if we assume a conscious
ness in the unconscious, we are at once faced with the difficulty
that no consciousness can exist without a subject, that is, an ego
to which the contents are related. Consciousness needs a centre,
an ego to which something is conscious. We know of no other
kind of consciousness, nor can we imagine a consciousness with
out an ego. There can be no consciousness when there is no one
to say: "I am conscious."
507
It is unprofitable to speculate about things we cannot know.
I therefore refrain from making assertions that go beyond the
bounds of science. It was never possible for me to discover in
the unconscious anything like a personality comparable with
the ego. But although a "second ego" cannot be discovered
(except in the rare cases of dual personality), the manifesta
tions of the unconscious do at least show traces of personalities.
A simple example is the dream, where a number of real or
imaginary people represent the dream-thoughts. In nearly all
the important types of dissociation, the manifestations of the
unconscious assume a strikingly personal form. Careful ex
amination of the behaviour and mental content of these per
sonifications, however, reveals their fragmentary character.
They seem to represent complexes that have split off from a
greater whole, and are the very reverse of a personal centre of
the unconscious.
508
ι have always been greatly impressed by the character of
dissociated fragments as personalities. Hence I have often asked
myself whether we are not justified in assuming that, if such
fragments have personality, the whole from which they were
broken off must have personality to an even higher degree.
The inference seemed logical, since it does not depend on
whether the fragments are large or small. Why, then, should
not the whole have personality too? Personality need not imply
consciousness. It can just as easily be dormant or dreaming.
5°9
The general aspect of unconscious manifestations is in the
main chaotic and irrational, despite certain symptoms of intelli
gence and purposiveness. The unconscious produces dreams,
visions, fantasies, emotions, grotesque ideas, and so forth. This
283
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
is exactly what we would expect a dreaming personality to do.
It seems to be a personality that was never awake and was never
conscious of the life it had lived and of its own continuity. The
only question is whether the hypothesis of a dormant and
hidden personality is possible or not. It may be that all of the
personality to be found in the unconscious is contained in
the fragmentary personifications mentioned before. Since this is
very possible, all my conjectures would be in vain—unless there
were evidence of much less fragmentary and more complete
personalities, even though they are hidden.
5 10
I am convinced that such evidence exists. Unfortunately, the
material to prove this belongs to the subtleties of psychological
analysis. It is therefore not exactly easy to give the reader a
simple and convincing idea of it.
511
I shall begin with a brief statement; in the unconscious of
every man there is hidden a feminine personality, and in that
of every woman a masculine personality.
51!*
It is a well-known fact that sex is determined by a majority
of male or female genes, as the case may be. But the minority
of genes belonging to the other sex does not simply disappear.
A man therefore has in him a feminine side, an unconscious
feminine figure—a fact of which he is generally quite unaware.
I may take it as known that I have called this figure the "anima," and its counterpart in a woman the "animus." In order
not to repeat myself, I must refer the reader to the literature. 5
This figure frequently appears in dreams, where one can ob
serve all the attributes I have mentioned in earlier publications.
5*8
Another, no less important and clearly defined figure is the
"shadow." Like the anima, it appears either in projection on
suitable persons, or personified as such in dreams. The shadow
coincides with the "personal" unconscious (which corresponds
to Freud's conception of the unconscious). Again like the ani
ma, this figure has often been portrayed by poets and writers.
I would mention the Faust-Mephistopheles relationship and
Ε. T. A. Hoffmann's tale The Devil's Elixir as two especially
typical descriptions. The shadow personifies everything that the
subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always
5 Psychological Types, Def. 48; "The Relations between the Ego and the Un
conscious," pars. 2g6ff.; Psychology and Alchemy, Part II. Cf. also the third
paper in this volume.
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly—for instance,
inferior traits of character and other incompatible tendencies.®
514
The fact that the unconscious spontaneously personifies
certain affectively toned contents in dreams is the reason why
I have taken over these personifications in my terminology and
formulated them as names.
5'5
Besides these figures there are still a few others, less fre
quent and less striking, which have likewise undergone poetic
as well as mythological formulation. I would mention, for in
stance, the figure of the herο 7 and of the wise old man, 8 to
name only two of the best known.
l6
5
All these figures irrupt autonomously into consciousness as
soon as it gets into a pathological state. With regard to the
anima, I would particularly like to draw attention to the case
described by Nelken. 9 Now the remarkable thing is that these
figures show the most striking connections with the poetic,
religious, or mythological formulations, though these connec
tions are in no way factual. That is to say, they are spontaneous
products of analogy. One such case even led to the charge of
plagiarism: the French writer Benoit gave a description of the
anima and her classic myth in his book L'Atlantide, which is
an exact parallel of Rider Haggard's She. The lawsuit proved
unsuccessful; Benoit had never heard of She. (It might, in the
last analysis, have been an instance of cryptomnesic deception,
which is often extremely difficult to rule out.) The distinctly
"historical" aspect of the anima and her condensation with the
figures of the sister, wife, mother, and daughter, plus the asso
ciated incest motif, can be found in Goethe ("You were in times
gone by my wife or sister"), 10 as well as in the anima figure of
the regina or femina alba in alchemy. The English alchemist
Eirenaeus Philalethes ("lover of truth"), writing about 1645,
remarks that the "Queen" was the King's "sister, mother, or
wife." 11 The same idea can be found, ornately elaborated, in
β Toni Wolff, "Einfuhrung in die Grundlagen der Komplexen Psychologie," p.
107. [Also Aionj ch. 2.—EDITORS.]
7 Symbols of Transformation, Part II.
8 Cf, supra, "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales."
9 See n. 4, above.
10 [Untitled poem ("Warum gabst du uns die tiefen Blicke") in Werke, II, p. 43,
—EDITORS.]
H Ripley Reviv'd; or, An Exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Hermetico-Poetical
Works (1678), trans, into German in 1741 and possibly known to Goethe.
285
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Nelken's patient and in a whole series of cases observed by me,
where I was able to rule out with certainty any possibility of
literary influence. For the rest, the anima complex is one of the
oldest features of Latin alchemy. 12
5*7
When one studies the archetypal personalities and their be
haviour with the help of the dreams, fantasies, and delusions of
patients, 13 one is profoundly impressed by their manifold and
unmistakable connections with mythological ideas completely
unknown to the layman. They form a species of singular beings
whom one would like to endow with ego-consciousness; indeed,
they almost seem capable of it. And yet this idea is not borne
out by the facts. There is nothing in their behaviour to suggest
that they have an ego-consciousness as we know it. They show,
on the contrary, all the marks of fragmentary personalities.
They are masklike, wraithlike, without problems, lacking selfreflection, with no conflicts, no doubts, no sufferings; like gods,
perhaps, who have no philosophy, such as the Brahma-gods of
the Samyutta-nikaya, whose erroneous views needed correction
by the Buddha. Unlike other contents, they always remain
strangers in the world of consciousness, unwelcome intruders
saturating the atmosphere with uncanny forebodings or even
with the fear of madness.
518
if we examine their content, i.e., the fantasy material con
stituting their phenomenology, we find countless archaic and
"historical" associations and images of an archetypal nature. 14
This peculiar fact permits us to draw conclusions about the
"localization" of anima and animus in the psychic structure.
They evidently live and function in the deeper layers of the
unconscious, especially in that phylogenetic substratum which
I have called the collective unconscious. This localization ex
plains a good deal of their strangeness: they bring into our
ephemeral consciousness an unknown psychic life belonging to
a remote past. It is the mind of our unknown ancestors, their
way of thinking and feeling, their way of experiencing life and
12 Cf. the celebrated "Visio Arislei" (Arlis auri ferae, 1593, II, pp. 246ff.), also
available in German: Ruska, Die Vision des Arisleus, p. 22.
13 For an example of the method, see Psychology and Alchemy, Part II.
Ii In my Symbols of Transformation, I have described the case of a young woman
with a "hero-story," i.e., an animus fantasy that yielded a rich harvest of myth
ological material. Rider Haggard, Benoit, and Goethe (in Faust) have all stressed
the historical character of the anima.
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
the world, gods and men. The existence of these archaic strata
is presumably the source of man's belief in reincarnations and
in memories of "previous existences." Just as the human body
is a museum, so to speak, of its phylogenetic history, so too is
the psyche. We have no reason to suppose that the specific
structure of the psyche is the only thing in the world that has
no history outside its individual manifestations. Even the con
scious mind cannot be denied a history reaching back at least
five thousand years. It is only our ego-consciousness that has
forever a new beginning and an early end. The unconscious
psyche is not only immensely old, it is also capable of growing
into an equally remote future. It moulds the human species and
is just as much a part of it as the human body, which, though
ephemeral in the individual, is collectively of immense age.
S1Q
The anima and animus live in a world quite different from
the world outside—in a world where the pulse of time beats in
finitely slowly, where the birth and death of individuals count
for little. No wonder their nature is strange, so strange that
their irruption into consciousness often amounts to a psychosis.
They undoubtedly belong to the material that comes to light in
schizophrenia.
52°
What I have said about the collective unconscious may give
you a more or less adequate idea of what I mean by this term.
If we now turn back to the problem of individuation, we shall
see ourselves faced with a rather extraordinary task: the psyche
consists of two incongruous halves which together should form
a whole. One is inclined to think that ego-consciousness is
capable of assimilating the unconscious, at least one hopes that
such a solution is possible. But unfortunately the unconscious
really is unconscious; in other words, it is unknown. And how
can you assimilate something unknown? Even if you can form
a fairly complete picture of the anima and animus, this does not
mean that you have plumbed the depths of the unconscious.
One hopes to control the unconscious, but the past masters in
the art of self-control, the yogis, attain perfection in samadhi, a
state of ecstasy, which so far as we know is equivalent to a state
of unconsciousness. It makes no difference whether they call our
unconscious a "universal consciousness"; the fact remains that
in their case the unconscious has swallowed up ego-conscious
ness. They do not realize that a "universal consciousness" is a
287
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
contradiction in terms, since exclusion, selection, and discrimi
nation are the root and essence of everything that lays claim to
the name "consciousness." "Universal consciousness" is logi
cally identical with unconsciousness. It is nevertheless true that
a correct application of the methods described in the Pali Canon
or in the Yogasutra induces a remarkable extension of con
sciousness. But, with increasing extension, the contents of con
sciousness lose in clarity of detail. In the end, consciousness
becomes all-embracing, but nebulous; an infinite number of
things merge into an indefinite whole, a state in which subject
and object are almost completely identical. This is all very
beautiful, but scarcely to be recommended anywhere north of
the Tropic of Cancer.
21
5
For this reason we must look for a different solution. We
believe in ego-consciousness and in what we call reality. The
realities of a northern climate are somehow so convincing that
we feel very much better off when we do not forget them. For
us it makes sense to concern ourselves with reality. Our Euro
pean ego-consciousness is therefore inclined to swallow up the
unconscious, and if this should not prove feasible we try to
suppress it. But if we understand anything of the unconscious,
we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is
dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this
life turns against us if suppressed, as happens in neurosis.
5 22
Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one
of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must
contend, let it at least be a fair fight with equal rights on both
sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its
reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious
should be given the chance of having its way too—as much of it
as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collabora
tion at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be.
It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the
patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an "in
dividual."
523
This, roughly, is what I mean by the individuation process.
As the name shows, it is a process or course of development
arising out of the conflict between the two fundamental psychic
facts. I have described the problems of this conflict, at least in
their essentials, in my essay "The Relations between the Ego
288
CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, AND INDIVIDUATION
and the Unconscious." A special chapter, however, is the sym
bolism of the process, which is of the utmost importance for
understanding the final stages of the encounter between con
scious and unconscious, in practice as well as in theory. My
investigations during these last years have been devoted mainly
to this theme. It turned out, to my own great astonishment, that
the symbol formation has the closest affinities with alchemical
ideas, and especially with the conceptions of the "uniting
symbol," 15 which yield highly significant parallels. Naturally
these are processes which have no meaning in the initial stages
of psychological treatment. On the other hand, more difficult
cases, such as cases of unresolved transference, develop these
symbols. Knowledge of them is of inestimable importance in
treating cases of this kind, especially when dealing with cul
tured patients.
584
How the harmonizing of conscious and unconscious data is
to be undertaken cannot be indicated in the form of a recipe.
It is an irrational life-process which expresses itself in definite
symbols. It may be the task of the analyst to stand by this
process with all the help he can give. In this case, knowledge of
the symbols is indispensable, for it is in them that the union
of conscious and unconscious contents is consummated. Out of
this union emerge new situations and new conscious attitudes.
I have therefore called the union of opposites the "transcendent
function." 16 This rounding out of the personality into a whole
may well be the goal of any psychotherapy that claims to be
more than a mere cure of symptoms.
15 [Psychological Types, Def. 51 and ch. V, 3c. In the Collected Works, the
term "uniting symbol" supersedes the earlier translation "reconciling symbol."
—EDITORS ]
ie [Cf. "The Transcendent Function."—EDITORS.]
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION *
Tao's working of things is vague and obscure.
Obscure! Oh vague!
In it are images.
Vague! Oh obscure!
In it are things.
Profound! Oh dark indeedl
In it is seed.
Its seed is very truth.
In it is trustworthiness.
From the earliest Beginning until today
Its name is not lacking
By which to fathom the Beginning of all things.
How do I know it is the Beginning of all things?
Through it!
LAO-TZU,
Tao Teh Ching, ch. 21.
Introductory
BsS
During the 1920's, I made the acquaintance in America of a
lady with an academic education—we will call her Miss X—who
had studied psychology for nine years. She had read all the more
recent literature in this field. In 1928, at the age of fifty-five,
she came to Europe in order to continue her studies under my
guidance. As the daughter of an exceptional father she had
varied interests, was extremely cultured, and possessed a lively
turn of mind. She was unmarried, but lived with the uncon
scious equivalent of a human partner, namely the animus (the
personification of everything masculine in a woman), in that
1 [Translated from "Zur Empirie des Individuationsprozesses," Gestaltungen
des Unbeuiussten (Zurich, 1950), where it carries the author's note that it is a
"thoroughly revised and enlarged version of the lecture of the same title first
published in the Eranos-Jahrbuch 1933," i.e., in 1934. The original version was
translated by Stanley DelI and published in The Integration of the Personality
(New York, 1939; London, 1940). The motto by Lao-tzu is from a translation
by Carol Baumann in her article "Time and Tao," Spring, 1951, p- 30.—EDITORS.]
290
A STUDY XN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
characteristic liaison so often met with in women with an aca
demic education. As frequently happens, this development of
hers was based on a positive father complex: she was "fille &
papa" and consequently did not have a good relation to her
mother. Her animus was not of the kind to give her cranky
ideas. She was protected from this by her natural intelligence
and by a remarkable readiness to tolerate the opinions of other
people. This good quality, by no means to be expected in the
presence of an animus, had, in conjunction with some difficult
experiences that could not be avoided, enabled her to realize
that she had reached a limit and "got stuck," and this made it
urgently necessary for her to look round for ways that might
lead her out of the impasse. That was one of the reasons for her
trip to Europe. Associated with this there was another—not acci
dental—motive. On her mother's side she was of Scandinavian
descent. Since her relation to her mother left very much to be
desired, as she herself clearly realized, the feeling had gradually
grown up in her that this side of her nature might have de
veloped differently if only the relation to her mother had given
it a chance. In deciding to go to Europe she was conscious that
she was turning back to her own origins and was setting out to
reactivate a portion of her childhood that was bound up with
the mother. Before coming to Zurich she had gone back to Den
mark, her mother's country. There the thing that affected her
most was the landscape, and unexpectedly there came over her
the desire to paint—above all, landscape motifs. Till then she
had noticed no such aesthetic inclinations in herself, also she
lacked the ability to paint or draw. She tried her hand at watercolours, and her modest landscapes filled her with a strange
feeling of contentment. Painting them, she told me, seemed to
fill her with new life. Arriving in Zurich, she continued her
painting efforts, and on the day before she came to me for the
first time she began another landscape—this time from memory.
While she was working on it, a fantasy-image suddenly thrust
itself between her and the picture: she saw herself with the
lower half of her body in the earth, stuck fast in a block of
rock. The region round about was a beach strewn with boulders.
In the background was the sea. She felt caught and helpless.
Then she suddenly saw me in the guise of a medieval sorcerer.
She shouted for help, I came along and touched the rock with
291
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
a magic wand. The stone instantly burst open, and she stepped
out uninjured. She then painted this fantasy-image instead of
the landscape and brought it to me on the following day.
Picture ι
526
As usually happens with beginners and people with no skill
of hand, the drawing of the picture cost her considerable diffi
culties. In such cases it is very easy for the unconscious to slip
its subliminal images into the painting. Thus it came about
that the big boulders would not appear on the paper in their
real form but took on unexpected shapes. They looked, some
of them, like hardboiled eggs cut in two, with the yolk in the
middle. Others were like pointed pyramids. It was in one of
these that Miss X was stuck. Her hair, blown out behind her,
and the movement of the sea suggested a strong wind.
527
The picture shows first of all her imprisoned state, but not
yet the act of liberation. So it was there that she was attached
to the earth, in the land of her mother. Psychologically this state
means being caught in the unconscious. Her inadequate rela
tion to her mother had left behind something dark and in need
of development. Since she succumbed to the magic of her
motherland and tried to express this by painting, it is obvious
that she is still stuck with half her body in Mother Earth: that
is, she is still partly identical with the mother and, what is more,
through that part of the body which contains just that secret of
the mother which she had never inquired into.
s
S
5
Since Miss X had discovered all by herself the method of
active imagination I have long been accustomed to use, I was
able to approach the problem at just the point indicated by the
picture: she is caught in the unconscious and expects magical
help from me, as from a sorcerer. And since her psychological
knowledge had made her completely au fait with certain pos
sible interpretations, there was no need of even an understand
ing wink to bring to light the apparent sous-entendu of the
liberating magician's wand. The sexual symbolism, which for
many naive minds is of such capital importance, was no dis
covery for her. She was far enough advanced to know that ex
planations of this kind, however true they might be in other
respects, had no significance in her case. She did not want to
know how liberation might be possible in a general way, but
292
Picture 6
Picture 7
Picture S
Picture 20
Picture 24
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
how and in what way it could come about for her. And about
this I knew as little as she. I know that such solutions can
only come about in an individual way that cannot be foreseen.
One cannot think up ways and means artificially, let alone know
them in advance, for such knowledge is merely collective, based
on average experience, and can therefore be completely inade
quate, indeed absolutely wrong, in individual cases. And when,
on top of that, we consider the patient's age, we would do well
to abandon from the start any attempt to apply ready-made
solutions and warmed-up generalities of which the patient
knows just as much as the doctor. Long experience has taught
me not to know anything in advance and not to know better,
but to let the unconscious take precedence. Our instincts have
ridden so infinitely many times, unharmed, over the problems
that arise at this stage of life that we may be sure the trans
formation processes which make the transition possible have
long been prepared in the unconscious and are only waiting to
be released.
5*9
I had already seen from her previous history how the uncon
scious made use of the patient's inability to draw in order to
insinuate its own suggestions. I had not overlooked the fact that
the boulders had surreptitiously transformed themselves into
e SS s - The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical signifi
cance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol—it is also a "philo
sophical" one. As the former it is the Orphic egg, the world's
beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval
natural philosophers, the vessel from which, at the end of the
opus alchymicum, the homunculus emerges, that is, the Anthropos, the spiritual, inner and complete man, who in Chinese
alchemy is called the chen-yen (literally, "perfect man"). 2
53°
From this hint, therefore, I could already see what solution
the unconscious had in mind, namely individuation, for this is
the transformation process that loosens the attachment to the
unconscious. It is a definitive solution, for which all other ways
serve as auxiliaries and temporary makeshifts. This knowledge,
which for the time being I kept to myself, bade me act with
caution. I therefore advised Miss X not to let it go at a mere
fantasy-image of the act of liberation, but to try to make a
2Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. igSf., 306, and Wei Po-yang, "An AncienE
Chinese Treatise on Alchemy."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
picture of it. How this would turn out I could not guess, and
that was a good thing, because otherwise I might have put
Miss X on the wrong track from sheer helpfulness. She found
this task terribly difficult owing to her artistic inhibitions. So I
counselled her to content herself with what was possible and to
use her fantasy for the purpose of circumventing technical diffi
culties. The object of this advice was to introduce as much
fantasy as possible into the picture, for in that way the uncon
scious has the best chance of revealing its contents. I also ad
vised her not to be afraid of bright colours, for I knew from
experience that vivid colours seem to attract the unconscious.
Thereupon, a new picture arose.
Picture 2
531
Again there are boulders, the round and pointed forms; but
the round ones are no longer eggs, they are complete circles,
and the pointed ones are tipped with golden light. One of the
round forms has been blasted out of its place by a golden flash
of lightning. The magician and magic wand are no longer there.
The personal relationship to me seems to have ceased: the pic
ture shows an impersonal natural process.
532
While Miss X was painting this picture she made all sorts of
discoveries. Above all, she had no notion of what picture she
was going to paint. She tried to reimagine the initial situation;
the rocky shore and the sea are proof of this. But the eggs turned
into abstract spheres or circles, and the magician's touch be
came a flash of lightning cutting through her unconscious state.
With this transformation she had rediscovered the historical
synonym of the philosophical egg, namely the rotundum, the
round, original form of the Anthropos (or στοιχάον στρογγνλον,
'round element,' as Zosimos calls it). This is an idea that has
been associated with the Anthropos since ancient times.3 The
soul, too, according to tradition, has a round form. As the Monk
of Heisterbach says, it is not only "like to the sphere of the
moon, but is furnished on all sides with eyes" (ex omni parte
oculata). We shall come back to this motif of polyophthalmia
later on. His remark refers in all probability to certain paTapsychological phenomena, the "globes of light" or globular
3 Psychology and Alchemy, par.
109,
n.
38.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
luminosities which, with remarkable consistency, are regarded
as "souls" in the remotest parts of the world.4
533
The liberating flash of lightning is a symbol also used by
Paracelsus 5 and the alchemists for the same thing. Moses' rocksplitting staff, which struck forth the living water and after
wards changed into a serpent, may have been an unconscious
echo in the background.6 Lightning signifies a sudden, unex
pected, and overpowering change of psychic condition.7
534
"In this Spirit of the Fire-flash consists the Great Almighty
Life," says Jakob Bohme. 8 "For when you strike upon the sharp
part of the stone, the bitter sting of Nature sharpens itself, and
is stirred in the highest degree. For Nature is dissipated or
broken asunder in the sharpness, so that the Liberty shines
forth as a Flash." 9 The flash is the "Birth of the light." 10 It has
transformative power: "For if I could in my Flesh comprehend
the Flash, which I very well see and know how it is, I could
clarify or transfigure my Body therewith, so that it would shine
with a bright light and glory. And then it would no more re
semble and be conformed to the bestial Body, but to the angels
of God." 11 Elsewhere Bohme says: "As when the Flash of Life
4 Caesarius of Heisterbach, The Dialogue on Miracles, trans, by Scott and Bland,
Dist. IV, c. xxxiv (p. S31) and Dist. I, c. xxxii (p. 42): "His soul was like a glassy
spherical vessel, that had eyes before and behind." A collection of similar re
ports in Bozzano, Popoli primitivi e Manifestazioni supernormali.
B Cf. my "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon,'' par. 190. It is Hermes Kyllenios,
who calls up the souls. The caduceus corresponds to the phallus. Cf. Hippolytus,
Elenchos, V, 7, go.
6 The same association in Elenchos, V, 16, 8: serpent = δύναμη of Moses.
TRuland (Lexicon, 1612) speaks of "the gliding of the mind or spirit into another
world." In the Chymical Wedding of Rosencreutz the lightning causes the royal
pair to come alive. The Messiah appears as lightning in the Syrian Apocalypse
of Baruch (Charles, Apocrypha, II, p. 510). Hippolytus (Elenchos, VIII, 10, 3)
says that, in the view of the Docetists, the Monogenes dicw together "like the
greatest lightning-flash into the smallest body" (because the Aeons could not
stand the effulgence of the Pleroma), or like "light under the eyelids." In this
form he came into the world through Mary (VIII, 10, 5). Lactantius (Works,
trans, by Fletcher, I, p. 470) says: ". . . the light of the descending God may be
manifest in all the world as lightning." This refers to Luke 17 : 24: ". . . as the
lightning that lighteneth . . so shall the Son of man be in his day." Similarly
Zach. 9 : 14: "And the Lord God . . . his dart shall go forth as lightning" (DV).
& Forty Questions concerning the Soul (Works, ed. Ward and Langcake, II, p. 17).
8 The High and Deep Searching of the Threefold Life of Man (Works, II), p. 11.
1 1 Ibid., X. 38, p. 86,
W Aurora (Worksj I), X. 17, p. 84.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
535
rises up in the centre of the Divine Power, wherein all the
spirits of God attain their life, and highly rejoice." 12 Of the
"Source-spirit" Mercurius 3 he says that it "arises in the Fireflash," Mercurius is the "animal spirit" which, from Lucifer's
body, "struck into the Salniter 1 3 of God like a fiery serpent
from its hole, as if there went a liery Thunder-bolt into God's
Nature, or a fierce Serpent, which tyrannizes, raves, and rages,
as if it would tear and rend Nature all to pieces." 14 Of the
"innermost birth of the soul" the bestial body "attains only a
glimpse, just as if it lightened." 1 5 "The triumphing divine
Birth lasteth in us men only so long as the flash lasteth; there
fore our knowledge is but in part, whereas in God the flash
stands unchangeably, always eternally thus." 16 (Cf. Fig. i.)
In this connection I would like to mention that Bohme asso
ciates lightning with something else too. That is the quaternity,
which plays a great role in the following pictures. When caught
and assuaged in the four "Qualities" or four "Spirits," 17 "the
Flash, or the Light, subsists in the Midst or Centre as a Heart. 18
Now when that Light, which stands in the Midst or Centre,
shines into the four Spirits, then the Power of the four Spirits
rises up in the Light, and they become Living, and love the
Light; that is, they take it into them, and are impregnated with
it." 19 "The Flash, or Stock, 20 or Pith, or the Heart, which is
generated in the Powers, remains standing in the Midst or
Centre, and that is the Son. . . . And this is the true Holy
Ghost, whom we Christians honour and adore for the third
12 Ibid., X. 53, p. 87.
13 Salniter = sal nitri — Saltpetre; like salt, the prima materia. Three Principles
of the Divine Essence (Works, 1), I. g, p. 10.
14 Aurora, XV. 84, p. 154. Here the lightning is not a revelation of God's will
but a Satanic change of state. Lightning is also a manifestation of the devil
(Luke 10: 18).
is Ibid., XIX. 19, p. 185.
16 Ibid., XI. io, p. 93.
17 For Bohme the four "qualities" coincide partly with the four elements but
also with dry, wet, warm, cold, the four qualities of taste (e.g., sharp, bitter,
sweet, sour), and the four colours.
18 A heart forms the centre of the mandala in the Forty Questions. See Fig. 1.
19 Aurora, XI, 27-28, p. 94,
20 "Stock" in this context can mean tree or cross (στavp&s, 'stake, pole, post"), but
it could also refer to a staff or stick. It would then be the magical wand that, in
the subsequent development of these pictures, begins to sprout like a tree. Cf.
infra, par. 570.
Fig.
1.
Mandala from Jakob Bohme's XL Questions concerning
the Soule (1620)
The picture is taken from the English edition of 1647. The quaternity
consists of Father, H. Ghost, Sonne, and Earth or Earthly Man. It is
characteristic that the two semicircles are turned back to back instead
of closing.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Person in the Deity." 21 Elsewhere Bohme says: "When the
Fire-flash reaches the dark substance,22 it is a great terror, from
which the Cold Fire draws back in affright as if it would perish,
and becomes impotent, and sinks into itself, . . . But now the
Flash . . . makes in its Rising a Cross23 with the Compre
hension of all Properties; for here arises the Spirit in the
Φ
Essence, and it stands thus: Q. If thou hast here understanding,
thou needest ask no more; it is Eternity and Time, God in Love
and Anger, also Heaven and Hell. The lower part, which is
thus marked^, is the first Principle, and is the Eternal Nature
in the Anger, viz. the Kingdom of Darkness dwelling in itself;
and the upper Part, with this figure
is the Salniter;24 the
Upper Cross above the Circle is the Kingdom of Glory, which
in the Flagrat of Joy in the Will of the free Lubet25 proceeds
from the Fire in the Lustre of the Light into the power of the
21 Aurora, XI. 37, p. 95.
22 The lower darkness corresponds to the elemental world, which has a quater
nary character. Cf. the four Achurayim mentioned in the commentary to Pic
ture 7.
23 The reason for this is that the lightning is caught by the quatemity of ele
ments and qualities and so divided into four.
24 Saltpetre is the arcane substance, synonymous with Sal Saturni and Sal Tartari
mundi maioris (Khunrath, Von hylealischen Chaos, 1597, p. 263). Tartarus has
a double meaning in alchemy: on the one hand it means tartar (hydrogen
potassium tartrate); on the other, the lower half of the cooking vessel and also
the arcane substance (Eleazar, Uraltes Chymisches IVerk, 1760, II, p. 91, no. 32).
The metals grow in the "cavitates terrae" (Tartarus). Salt, according to Khun
rath, is the "centrum terrae physicum." Eleazar says that the "Heaven and
Tartarus of the wise" change all metals back into mercury. Saturn is a dark
"malefic" star. There is the same symbolism in the Offertory from the Mass for
the Dead: "Deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell
and from the deep pit; deliver them from the mouth of the lion [attribute of
Ialdabaoth, Saturn], lest Tartarus lay hold on them, and they fall into darkness."
Saturn "maketh darkness" (Bohme, Threefold Life, IX. 85, p. 96) and is one
aspect of the Salniter (Signature rerum, XIV. 46-48, p. 118). Salniter is the
"dried" or "fixed" form and embodiment of the seven "Source Spirits" of God,
who are all contained in the seventh, Mercury, the "Word of God" (Aurora, XI.
86f., p. 99 and XV. 49, p. 151; Sig. rer., IV. 35, p. 28). Salniter, like mercury, is
the mother and cause of all metals and salts (Sig. rer., XIV. 46 and III. 16, pp. 118
and 19). It is a subtle body, the paradisal earth and the spotless state of the
body before the Fall, and hence the epitome of the prima materia.
25 ["Flagrat" and "lubet" are used by Bohme to signify respectively "flash, flame,
burning" and "desire, affect."—EDITORS.]
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
53 6
Liberty; and this spiritual Water26 . . . is the Corporality of
the free Lubet . . . wherein the Lustre from the Fire and
Light makes a Tincture, viz. a budding and growing and a
Manifestation of Colours from the Fire and Light." 27
I have purposely dwelt at Some length on Bohme's disquisi
tion on the lightning, because it throws a good deal of light on
the psychology of our pictures. However, it anticipates some
things that will only become clear when we examine the pic
tures themselves. I must therefore ask the reader to bear
Bohme's views in mind in the following commentary. I have
put the most important points in italics. It is clear from the
quotations what the lightning meant to Bohme and what sort
of a role it plays in the present case. The last quotation in par
ticular deserves special attention, as it anticipates various key
motifs in the subsequent pictures done by my patient, namely
the cross, the quaternity, the divided mandala, the lower half of
which is virtually equivalent to hell and the upper half to the
lighter realm of the "Salniter." For Bohme the lower half sig
nifies the "everlasting darkness" that "extends into the fire," 28
while the upper, "salnitrous" half corresponds to the third
Principle, the "visible, elemental world, which is an emanation
of the first and other Principle."29 The cross, in turn, cor
responds to the second Principle, the "Kingdom of Glory,"
which is revealed through "magic fire," the lightning, which he
calls a "Revelation of Divine Motion." 30 The "lustre of the
fire" comes from the "unity of God" and reveals his will. The
mandala therefore represents the "Kingdom of Nature," which
"in itself is the great everlasting Darkness." The "Kingdom of
God," on the other hand, or the "Glory" (i.e., the Cross), is the
Light of which John ι : 5 speaks: "And the light shineth in the
darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." The Life
that "breaks itself off from the eternal Light and enters into
the Object, as into the selfhood of Properties," is "only fantastic
and foolish, even such as the Devils were, and the souls of the
damned are; as can be seen . . . from the fourth number." 31
26 Reference to the "waters which were above the firmament"
Sig. rer., XIV. 32-33, p. 116.
28 Tabula principiorum, 3 (Amsterdam edn., 1682, p. 271).
27
29 Ibid., 5, p. 271.
SOIbid., 42, p. 279.
81 Four Tables of Divine Revelation, p. 14.
(Gen. 1: 7).
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
For the "fire of Nature" is called by Bohme the fourth form,
and he understands it as a "spiritual Life-Fire, that exists from
a continual conjunction . . . of Hardness [i.e., the solidified,
dry Salniter] and Motion [the Divine Will]." 32 Quite in keep
ing with John ι : 5 the quaternity of the lightning, the Cross,
pertains to the Kingdom of Glory, whereas Nature, the visible
world and the dark abyss remain untouched by the fourfold
light and abide in darkness.
537
For the sake of completeness I should mention that ^ is the
sign for cinnabar, the most important quicksilver ore (HgS).33
The coincidence of the two symbols can hardly be accidental in
view of the significance which Bohme attributes to Mercurius.
Ruland finds it rather hard to define exactly what was meant by
cinnabar. 34 The only certain thing is that there was a κιννάβαρπ
τών φιλοσόφων (cinnabar of the philosophers) in Greek alchemy,
and that it stood for the rubedo stage of the transforming sub
stance. Thus Zosimos says: "(After the preceding process) you
will find the gold coloured fiery red like blood. That is the
cinnabar of the philosophers and the copper man (χαλκάνθρωπos),
turned to gold." 35 Cinnabar was also supposed to be identical
with the uroboros dragon. 36 Even in Pliny, cinnabar is called
sanguis draconis, 'dragon's blood,' a term that lasted all through
the Middle Ages. 37 On account of its redness it was often identi
fied with the philosophical sulphur. A special difficulty is the fact
that the wine-red cinnabar crystals were classed with the άνθρακα,
carbons, to which belong all reddish and red-tinted stones
like rubiesj garnets, amethysts, etc. They all shine like glow
ing coals.38 The λιθάνθρακες (anthracites), on the other hand, were
32 ibid., p. 13.
33 Its official name is hydrargyrum sulfuratum rubrum. Another version of its
sign is
cf. Liidy 1 Alchemistische und Chemische Zeichen, and Gessmann, Die
Geheimsymbole der Alchymie, Arzneikunde und Astrologie des Mittelalters.
34 "There is very great doubt among doctors as to what is actually signified by
Cinnabar, for the term is applied by different authorities to very diverse sub
stances." Ruland, Lexicon, p. 102.
35 Berthelot, Alch. grees, III, xxix, 24.
86 Ibid., I, v, 1. It may be remarked that the dragon has three ears and four
legs (The axiom of MariaI Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 2ogf.)
37 Hist, nat., Lib. XXXIII, cap. vii.
88 The medical term anthrax means 'carbuncle, abscess.'
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
regarded as "quenched" coals. These associations explain the
similarity of the alchemical signs for gold, antimony, and
garnet. Gold (!), after mercury the most important "philosophi
cal" substance, shares its sign with what is known as "regulus"
or "button" antimony,39 and during the two decades prior to
the writing of Signatura return (1622), from which our
quotation comes, this had enjoyed particular fame as the new
transformative substance 40 and panacea.41 Basilius Valentinus'
Triumphal Car of Antimony was published about the first
decade of the seventeenth century (the first edition possibly in
1611) and soon found the widest acclaim.42 The sign for garnet
anc ^ 0 means salt. A cross with a little circle in it -¢5—
is
means copper (from the "Cyprian," Venus φ). Medicinal tar
taric acid is denoted by $, and hydrogen potassium tartrate
(tartar) has the signs θ ¢- 43 Tartar settles on the bottom of the
vessel, which in the language of the alchemists means: in the
underworld, Tartarus.44
538
I will not attempt here any interpretation of Bohme's sym
bols, but will only point out that in our picture the lightning,
striking into the darkness and "hardness," has blasted a rotundum out of the dark massa confusa and kindled a light in it.
There can be no doubt that the dark stone means the blackness,
i.e., the unconscious, just as the sea and sky and the upper half
of the woman's figure indicate the sphere of consciousness. We
may safely assume that Bohme's symbol refers to a similar situa
tion. The lightning has released the spherical form from the
rock and so caused a kind of liberation. But, just as the magician
has been replaced by the lightning, so the patient has been re
placed by the sphere. The unconscious has thus presented her
39 Antimony is also denoted by 5. Regulus = "The impure mass of metal
formed beneath the slag in melting and reducing ores" (Merriam-Webster).
40 Michael Maier (Symbola aureae mensae, 1617, p. 380) says: "The true antimony
of the Philosophers lies hidden in the deep sea, like the son of the King."
*1 Praised as Hercules Morbicida, "slayer of diseases" (ibid., p.
42
378).
The book was (first?) mentioned by Maier, ibid., pp. 379ίϊ·
Also QTj, a pure quaternity.
Τάρταρα:, like βόρβοροί, βάρβαρα, etc. is probably onomatopoeic, expressing
terror. Topyavov means 'vinegar, spoilt wine.' Derived from ταράσσω, 'to stir up,
43
44
disturb, frighten' (τάραγμα, 'trouble, confusion') and τάρβοι, 'terror, awe.'
301
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
539
with ideas which show that she had gone on thinking without
the aid of consciousness and that this radically altered the initial
situation. It was again her inability to draw that led to this
result. Before finding this solution, she had made two attempts
to portray the act of liberation with human figures, but with no
success. She had overlooked the fact that the initial situation, her
imprisonment in the rock, was already irrational and symbolic
and therefore could not be solved in a rational way. It had to be
done by an equally irrational process. That was why I advised
her, should she fail in her attempt to draw human figures, to use
some kind of hieroglyph. It then suddenly struck her that the
sphere was a suitable symbol for the individual human being.
That it was a chance idea (Einfall) is proved by the fact that it
was not her conscious mind that thought up this typification,
but the unconscious, for an Einfall "falls in" quite of its own
accord. It should be noted that she represents only herself as
a sphere, not me. I am represented only by the lightning, purely
functionally, so that for her I am simply the "precipitating"
cause. As a magician I appeared to her in the apt role of Hermes
Kyllenios, of whom the Odyssey says: "Meanwhile Cyllenian
Hermes was gathering in the souls of the suitors, armed with
the splendid golden wand that he can use at will to cast a spell
on our eyes or wake us from the soundest sleep." 45 Hermes is
the ψυχών αίτιος, 'originator of souls.' He is also the ήγήτωρ όνΰρων,
'guide of dreams." 46 For the following pictures it is of special
importance that Hermes has the number 4 attributed to him.
Martianus Capella says: "The number four is assigned to the
Cyllenian, for he alone is held to be a fourfold god." 47
The form the picture had taken was not unreservedly wel
come to the patient's conscious mind. Luckily, however, while
painting it Miss X had discovered that two factors were in
volved. These, in her own words, were reason and the eyes.
Reason always wanted to make the picture as it thought it ought
to be; but the eyes held fast to their vision and finally forced
the picture to come out as it actually did and not in accordance
with rationalistic expectations. Her reason, she said, had really
intended a daylight scene, with the sunshine melting the sphere
45 Rieu trans., p. 351.
46 Hippolytus, Elenchos, V1 7, 30; Ker&iyi, "Hermes der Seelenfiihrer," p. 29.
47 Ibid., p. 30.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
free, but the eyes favoured a nocturne with "shattering, dan
gerous lightning." This realization helped her to acknowledge
the actual result of her artistic efforts and to admit that it was
in fact an objective and impersonal process and not a personal
relationship.
54°
For anyone with a personalistic view of psychic events, such
as a Freudian, it will not be easy to see in this anything more
than an elaborate repression. But if there was any repression
here we certainly cannot make, the conscious mind responsible
for it, because the conscious mind would undoubtedly have
preferred a personal imbroglio as being far more interesting.
The repression must have been manoeuvred by the unconscious
from the start. One should consider what this means: instinct,
the most original force of the unconscious, is suppressed or
turned back on itself by an arrangement stemming from this
same unconscious! It would be idle indeed to talk of "repres
sion" here, since we know that the unconscious goes straight for
its goal and that this does not consist solely in pairing two ani
mals but in allowing an individual to become whole. For this
purpose wholeness—represented by the sphere—is emphasized as
the essence of personality, while I am reduced to the fraction of
a second, the duration of a lightning flash.
54'
The patient's association to lightning was that it might stand
for intuition, a conjecture that is not far off the mark, since
intuitions often come "like a flash." Moreover, there are good
grounds for thinking that Miss X was a sensation type. She her
self thought she was one. The "inferior" function would then
be intuition. As such, it would have the significance of a re
leasing or "redeeming" function. We know from experience
that the inferior function always compensates, complements,
and balances the "superior" function.48 My psychic peculiarity
would make me a suitable projection carrier in this respect. The
inferior function is the one of which least conscious use is made.
This is the reason for its undifferentiated quality, but also for
its freshness and vitality. It is not at the disposal of the conscious
mind, and even after long use it never loses its autonomy and
spontaneity, or only to a very limited degree. Its role is there
fore mostly that of a deus ex machina. It depends not on the
<8 The pairs of functions are thinking/feeling, sensation/intuition. See Psycho
logical Types, definitions.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
ego but on the self. Hence it hits consciousness unexpectedly,
like lightning, and occasionally with devastating consequences.
It thrusts the ego aside and makes room for a supraordinate
factor, the totality of a person, which consists of conscious and
unconscious and consequently extends far beyond the ego. This
self was always present,49 but sleeping, like Nietzsche's "image
in the stone." 50 It is, in fact, the secret of the stone, of the lapis
philosophorum, in so far as this is the prima materia. In the
stone sleeps the spirit Mercurius, the "circle of the moon," the
"round and square," 51 the homunculus, Tom Thumb and
Anthropos at once,52 whom the alchemists also symbolized as
their famed lapis philosophorum. 53
2
54
All these ideas and inferences were naturally unknown to
my patient, and they were known to me at the time only in so
far as I was able to recognize the circle as a mandala,54 the psy
chological expression of the totality of the self. Under these
circumstances there could be no question of my having unin
tentionally infected her with alchemical ideas. The pictures are,
in all essentials, genuine creations of the unconscious; their
inessential aspects (landscape motifs) are derived from conscious
contents.
543
Although the sphere with its glowing red centre and the
golden flash of lightning play the chief part, it should not be
overlooked that there are several other eggs or spheres as well.
If the sphere signifies the self of the patient, we must apply this
interpretation to the other spheres, too. They must therefore
represent other people who, in all probability, were her inti
mates. In both the pictures two other spheres are clearly indi
cated. So I must mention that Miss X had two women friends
who shared her intellectual interests and were joined to her in
a lifelong friendship. All three of them, as if bound together by
fate, are rooted in the same "earth," i.e., in the collective un
conscious, which is one and the same for all. It is probably for
this reason that the second picture has the decidedly nocturnal
49 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 329, for the a priori presence of the mandala
symbol.
so Details in ibid,, par. 406.
51 Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, II, p. 139.
52 "The Spirit Mercurius," pars. 267¾.
53 Psychology and Alchemy, Part III, ch. 5.
54 Cf. Wilhelm and Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower.
3°4
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
character intended by the unconscious and asserted against the
wishes o£ the conscious mind. It should also be mentioned that
the pointed pyramids of the first picture reappear in the second,
where their points are actually gilded by the lightning and
strongly emphasized. I would interpret them as unconscious
contents "pushing up" into the light of consciousness, as seems
to be the case with many contents of the collective unconscious. 55
In contrast to the first picture, the second is painted in more
vivid colours, red and gold. Gold expresses sunlight, value,
divinity even. It is therefore a favourite synonym for the lapis,
being the aurum philosophicum or aurum potabile or aurum
viireum. m
544
As already pointed out, I was not at that time in a position
to reveal anything of these ideas to Miss X, for the simple reason
that I myself knew nothing of them. I feel compelled to men
tion this circumstance yet again, because the third picture,
which now follows, brings a motif that points unmistakably to
alchemy and actually gave me the definitive incentive to make
a thorough study of the works of the old adepts.
Picture 3
545
The third picture, done as spontaneously as the first two, is
distinguished most of all by its light colours. Free-floating in
space, among clouds, is a dark blue sphere with a wine-red
border. Round the middle runs a wavy silver band, which keeps
the sphere balanced by "equal and opposite forces," as the
patient explained. To the right, above the sphere, floats a snake
with golden rings, its head pointing at the sphere—an obvious
development of the golden lightning in Picture 2. But she drew
the snake in afterwards, on account of certain "reflections." The
whole is "a planet in the making." In the middle of the silver
band is the number 12. The band was thought of as being in
rapid vibratory motion; hence the wave motif. It is like a
vibrating belt that keeps the sphere afloat. Miss X compared it
to the ring of Saturn. But unlike this, which is composed of
05
Though we talk a great deal and with some justice about the resistance which
the unconscious puts up against becoming conscious, it must also be emphasized
that it has a kind of gradient towards consciousness, and this acts as an urge to
become conscious.
BeThe last-named refers to Rev. 21: 21.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
disintegrated satellites, her ring was the origin of future moons
such as Jupiter possesses. The black lines in the silver band she
called "lines of force"; they were meant to indicate that it was
in motion. As if asking a question, I made the remark: "Then it
is the vibrations of the band that keep the sphere floating?"
"Naturally/' she said, "they are the wings of Mercury, the mes
senger of the gods. The silver is quicksilver!" She went on at
once: "Mercury, that is Hermes, is the Nous, the mind or
reason, and that is the animus, who is here outside instead of
inside. He is like a veil that hides the true personality." 57 We
shall leave this latter remark alone for the moment and turn
first to the wider context, which, unlike that of the two previous
pictures, is especially rich.
546
While Miss X was painting this picture, she felt that two
earlier dreams were mingling with her vision. They were the
two "big" dreams of her life. She knew of the attribute "big"
from my stories of the dream life of African primitives I had
visited. It has become a kind of "colloquial term" for char
acterizing archetypal dreams, which as we know have a peculiar
numinosity. It was used in this sense by the dreamer. Several
years previously, she had undergone a major operation. Under
narcosis she had the following dream-vision: She saw a grey
globe of the world. A silver band rotated about the equator
and, according to the frequency of its vibrations, formed alter
nate zones of condensation and evaporation. In the zones of
condensation appeared the numbers τ to 3, but they had the
tendency to increase up to 12. These numbers signified "nodal
points" or "great personalities" who played a part in man's
historical development. "The number 12 meant the most im
portant nodal point or great man (still to come), because it
denotes the climax or turning point of the process of develop
ment." (These are her own words.)
547
The other dream that intervened had occurred a year before
the first one: She saw a golden snake in the sky. It demanded
the sacrifice, from among a great crowd of people, of a young
man, who obeyed this demand with an expression of sorrow.
The dream was repeated a little later, but this time the snake
57
Miss X was referring to my remarks in "The Relations between the Ego and
the Unconscious," which she knew in its earlier version in Collected Papers on
Analytical Psychology (2nd. edn., 1920).
306
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
picked on the dreamer herself. The assembled people regarded
her compassionately, but she took her fate "proudly" on herself.
54
She was, as she told me, born immediately after midnight, so
soon afterwards, indeed, that there was some doubt as to whether
she came into the world on the 28th or on the 29th. Her father
used to tease her by saying that she was obviously born before
her time, since she came into the world just at the beginning of
a new day, but "only just," so that one could almost believe she
was born "at the twelfth hour." The number 12, as she said,
meant for her the culminating point of her life, which she had
only now reached. That is, she felt the "liberation" as the climax
of her life. It is indeed an hour of birth—not of the dreamer but
of the self. This distinction must be borne in mind.
549
The context to Picture 3 here established needs a little
commentary. First, it must be emphasized that the patient felt
the moment of painting this picture as the "climax" of her life
and also described it as such. Second, two "big" dreams have
amalgamated in the picture, which heightens its significance
still more. The sphere blasted from the rock in Picture 2 has
now, in the brighter atmosphere, floated up to heaven. The
nocturnal darkness of the earth has vanished. The increase of
light indicates conscious realization: the liberation has become
a fact that is integrated into consciousness. The patient has
understood that the floating sphere symbolizes the "true per
sonality." At present, however, it is not quite clear how she
understands the relation of the ego to the "true personality."
The term chosen by her coincides in a remarkable way with the
Chinese chen-yen, the "true" or "complete" man, who has the
closest affinity with the homo quadratus 58 of alchemy. 59 As we
pointed out in the analysis of Picture 2, the rotundum of al
chemy is identical with Mercurius, the "round and square." 60
In Picture 3 the connection is shown concretely through the
s
58 The expressions "square," "four-square," are used in English in this sense.
The "squared figure" in the centre of the alchemical mandala, symbolizing the
lapis, and whose midpoint is Mercurius, is called the "mediator making peace
between the enemies or elements." [Cf. A ion (Part II of this vol.), pars. 377ε,—
60
EDITORS.]
FLO So called in an invocation to Hermes. Cf. Preisendanz, II, p. 139. Further par
ticulars in Psychology and Alchemy, par. 172; fig. 214 is a repetition of the
quadrangulum secretum sapientum from the Tractatus aureus (s6io), p. 43.
Cf. also my "The Spirit Mercurius," par. 272.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
55°
55«
mediating idea of the wings of Mercury, who, it is evident, has
entered the picture in his own right and not because of any
non-existent knowledge of Bohme's writings.61
For the alchemists the process of individuation represented
by the opus was an analogy of the creation of the world, and
the opus itself an analogy of God's work of creation. Man was
seen as a microcosm, a complete equivalent of the world in
miniature. In our picture, we see what it is in man that cor
responds to the cosmos, and what kind of evolutionary process
is compared with the creation of the world and the heavenly
bodies: it is the birth of the self, the latter appearing as a
microcosm.62 It is not the empirical man that forms the "correspondentia" to the world, as the medievalists thought, but
rather the indescribable totality of the psychic or spiritual man,
who cannot be described because he is compounded of con
sciousness as well as of the indeterminable extent of the uncon
scious.63 The term microcosm proves the existence of a common
intuition (also present in my patient) that the "total" man is as
big as the world, like an Anthropos. The cosmic analogy had al
ready appeared in the much earlier dream under narcosis, which
likewise contained the problem of personality: the nodes of the
vibrations were great personalities of historical importance. As
early as 1916, I had observed a similar individuation process,
illustrated by pictures, in another woman patient. In her case
too there was a world creation, depicted as follows (see Fig. 2):
To the left, from an unknown source, three drops fall, dis
solving into four lines,64 or two pairs of lines. These lines move
and form four separate paths, which then unite periodically in
a nodal point and thus build a system of vibrations. The nodes
are "great personalities and founders of religions," as my erst
while patient told me. It is obviously the same conception as in
our case, and we can call it archetypal in so far as there exist
61 Despite my efforts I could find no other source for the "mercury." Naturally
cryptomnesia cannot be ruled out. Considering the definiteness of the idea and
the astonishing coincidence of its appearance (as in Bohme), I incline to the
hypothesis of spontaneous emergence, which does not eliminate the archetype but,
on the contrary, presupposes it.
62 Cf. the "innermost Birth of the Soul" in Bohme.
63 This homo interior or altus was Mercurius, or was at least derived Irom him.
Cf. "The Spirit Mercurius," pars. 284!!.
64 The lines are painted in the classical four colours.
Fig. 2. Sketch of a picture from the year 1916
At the top, the sun, surrounded by a rainbow-coloured halo
divided into twelve parts, like the zodiac. To the left, the
descending, to the right, the ascending, transformation
process.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
universal ideas of world periods, critical transitions, gods and
half gods who personify the aeons. The unconscious naturally
does not produce its images from conscious reflections, but from
the worldwide propensity of the human system to form such
conceptions as the world periods of the Parsees, the yugas and
avatars of Hinduism, and the Platonic months of astrology with
their bull and ram deities and the "great" Fish of the Christian
aeon. 65
552
That the nodes in our patient's picture signify or contain
numbers is a bit of unconscious number mysticism that is not
always easy to unravel. So far as I can see, there are two stages
in this arithmetical phenomenology: the first, earlier stage goes
up to 3, the second, later stage up to 12. Two numbers, 3 and
12, are expressly mentioned. Twelve is four times three. I think
we have here stumbled again on the axiom of Maria, that pe
culiar dilemma of three and four,6® which I have discussed
many times before because it plays such a great role in al
chemy. 67 I would hazard that we have to do here with a tetrameria (as in Greek alchemy), a transformation process divided
into four stages 68 of three parts each, analogous to the twelve
transformations of the zodiac and its division into four. As not
infrequently happens, the number 12 would then have a not
merely individual significance (as the patient's birth number,
for instance), but a time-conditioned one too, since the present
aeon of the Fishes is drawing to its end and is at the same time
the twelfth house of the zodiac. One is reminded of similar
Gnostic ideas, such as those in the gnosis of Justin: The
"Father" (Elohim) begets with Edem, who was half woman and
half snake, twelve "fatherly" angels, and Edem gives birth
besides these to twelve "motherly" angels, who—in psychologi
cal parlance—represent the shadows of the twelve "fatherly"
ones. The "motherly" angels divide themselves into four cate
gories (μίρη) of three each, corresponding to the four rivers of
65 The "giant" fish of the Abercius inscription, (c. A.D. 200). [Cf. Aion 1 par. 127,
n. 4.—EDITORS.]
68 Cf. Frobeniusl Schicksalskunde, pp. iigf. The author's interpretations seem
to me questionable in some respects.
67 Psychology and Alchemy, par. 204: "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in
Fairytales," pars. 425 and 430; and Psychology and Religion, par. 184.
68 Psychology and Alchemy, index, s.v. "quartering."
310
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
Paradise. These angels dance round in a circle (Iv χόρω κνκλικΰ).
It is legitimate to bring these seemingly remote associations into
hypothetical relationship, because they all spring from a com
mon root, i.e., the collective unconscious.
553
In our picture Mercurius forms a world-encircling band,
usually represented by a snake.70 Mercurius is a serpent or
dragon in alchemy ("serpens mercurialis"). Oddly enough, this
serpent is some distance away from the sphere and is aiming
down at it, as if to strike. The sphere, we are told, is kept afloat
by equal and opposite forces, represented by the quicksilver or
somehow connected with it. According to the old view, Mercurius is duplex, i.e., he is himself an antithesis.71 Mercurius or
Hermes is a magician and god of magicians. As Hermes Trismegistus he is the patriarch of alchemy. His magician's wand,
the caduceus, is entwined by two snakes. The same attribute
distinguishes Asklepios, the god of physicians.72 The archetype
of these ideas was projected on to me by the patient before ever
the analysis had begun.
554
The primordial image underlying the sphere girdled with
quicksilver is probably that of the world egg encoiled by a
snake.73 But in our case the snake symbol of Mercurius is re
placed by a sort of pseudo-physicistic notion of a field of vibrat
ing molecules of quicksilver. This looks like an intellectual
disguising of the true situation, that the self, or its symbol, is
βα
β» Hippolytus, Elenchos, V, 26, iff.
70 Cf. the "account . . . of a many-coloured and many-shaped sphere" from the
Cod. Vat. 190 (cited by Cumont in Textes et monuments figures relatifs aux mystdres de Mithra), which says: "The all-wise God fashioned an immensely great
dragon of gigantic length, breadth and thickness, having its dark-coloured head
. . . towards sunrise, and its tail . . . towards sunset." Of the dragon the text
says: "Then the all-wise Demiurge, by his highest command, set in motion the
great dragon with the spangled crown, I mean the twelve signs of the zodiac
which it carried on its back." Eisler (Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, p. 389)
connects this zodiacal serpent with Leviathan. For the dragon as symbol of the
year, see the Mythographus Vaticanus III, in Classicorum Auctorum e Vaticanis
Codicibus Editorum1 VI (1831), p. 16a. There is a similar association in Horapollo,
Hieroglyphiea, trans, by Boas, p. 57.
71 "The Spirit Mercurius," ch. 6.
72 Meier, Antike lnkubation und moderne Psychotherapie.
73 Vishnu is described as damodara, 'bound about the body with a rope." I am
not sure whether this symbol should be considered here; I mention it only for
the sake of completeness.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
entwined by the mercurial serpent. As the patient remarked
more or less correctly, the "true personality" is veiled by it.
This, presumably, would then be something like an Eve in the
coils of the paradisal serpent. In order to avoid giving this ap
pearance, Mercurius has obligingly split into his two forms,
according to the old-established pattern: the mercurius crudus
or vulgi (crude or ordinary quicksilver), and the Mercurius
Philosophorum (the spiritus mercurialis or the spirit Mer
curius, Hermes-Nous), who hovers in the sky as the golden
lightning-snake or Nous Serpent, at present inactive. In the
vibrations of the quicksilver band we may discern a certain
tremulous excitement, just as the suspension expresses tense
expectation: "Hover and haver suspended in pain!" For the
alchemists quicksilver meant the concrete, material manifesta
tion of the spirit Mercurius, as the above-mentioned mandala
in the scholia to the Tractatus aureus shows: the central point
is Mercurius, and the square is Mercurius divided into the four
elements. He is the anima mundi, the innermost point and at
the same time the encompasser of the world, like the atman in
the Upanishads. And just as quicksilver is a materialization of
Mercurius, so the gold is a materialization of the sun in the
earth.74
555
A circumstance that never ceases to astonish one is this: that
at all times and in all places alchemy brought its conception
of the lapis or its minera (raw material) together with the idea
of the homo altus or maximus, that is, with the Anthropos.75
Equally, one must stand amazed at the fact that here too the
conception of the dark round stone blasted out of the rock
should represent such an abstract idea as the psychic totality of
man. The earth and in particular the heavy cold stone is the
epitome of materiality, and so is the metallic quicksilver which,
the patient thought, meant the animus (mind, nous). We would
expect pneumatic symbols for the idea of the self and the
animus, images of air, breath, wind. The ancient formula
λίθοs ov λίθος (the stone that is no stone) expresses this dilemma:
we are dealing with a complexio Oppositorum j with something
like the nature of light, which under some conditions behaves
like particles and under others like waves, and is obviously in
1* Michael Maier, De circulo physico quadrato ¢1616), ch. I.
75 Christ in medieval alchemy. Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, Part III, ch. 5.
312
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
its essence both at once. Something of this kind must be con
jectured with regard to these paradoxical and hardly explicable
statements of the unconscious. They are not inventions of any
conscious mind, but are spontaneous manifestations of a psyche
not controlled by consciousness and obviously possessing all the
freedom it wants to express views that take no account of our
conscious intentions. The duplicity of Mercurius, his simulta
neously metallic and pneumatic nature, is a parallel to the
symbolization of an extremely spiritual idea like the Anthropos
by a corporeal, indeed metallic, substance (gold). One can
only conclude that the unconscious tends to regard spirit and
matter not merely as equivalent but as actually identical, and
this in flagrant contrast to the intellectual one-sidedness of con
sciousness, which would sometimes like to spiritualize matter
and at other times to materialize spirit. That the lapis, or in our
case the floating sphere, has a double meaning is clear from the
circumstance that it is characterized by two symbolical colours:
red means blood and affectivity, the physiological reaction that
joins spirit to body, and blue means the spiritual process (mind
or nous). This duality reminds one of the alchemical duality
corpus and spiritus, joined together by a third, the anima as the
ligamentum, corporis et spiritus. For Bohme a "high deep blue"
mixed with green signifies "Liberty," that is, the inner
"Kingdom of Glory" of the reborn soul. Red leads to the region
of fire and the "abyss of darkness," which forms the periphery of
Bohme's mandala (see Fig. i).
Picture 4
556
Picture 4, which now follows, shows a significant change:
the sphere has divided into an outer membrane and an inner
nucleus. The outer membrane is flesh coloured, and the origi
nally rather nebulous red nucleus in Picture 2 now has a dif
ferentiated internal structure of a decidedly ternary character.
The "lines of force" that originally belonged to the band of
quicksilver now run through the whole nuclear body, indicat
ing that the excitation is no longer external only but has seized
the innermost core. "An enormous inner activity now began,"
the patient told me. The nucleus with its ternary structure is
presumably the female organ, stylized to look like a plant, in
the act of fecundation: the spermatozoon is penetrating the
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
nuclear membrane. Its role is played by the mercurial serpent:
the snake is black, dark, chthonic, a subterranean and ithyphallic
Hermes; but it has the golden wings of Mercury and conse
quently possesses his pneumatic nature. The alchemists ac
cordingly represented their Mercurius duplex as the winged
and wingless dragon, calling the former feminine and the latter
masculine.
557
The serpent in our picture represents not so much the
spermatozoon but, more accurately, the phallus. Leone Ebreo,78
in his Dialoghi d'amore, calls the planet Mercury the membrum
virile of heaven, that is, of the macrocosm conceived as the
homo maximus?1 The spermatozoon seems, rather, to cor
respond to the golden substance which the snake is injecting
into the invaginated ectoderm of the nucleus.78 The two silver
petals (?) probably represent the receptive vessel, the moonbowl in which the sun's seed (gold) is destined to rest.79 Under
neath the flower is a small violet circle inside the ovary, indicat
ing by its colour that it is a "united double nature," spirit and
body (blue and red).80 The snake has a pale yellow halo, which
is meant to express its numinosity.
558
Since the snake evolved out of the flash of lightning or is
a modulated form of it, I would like to instance a parallel where
the lightning has the same illuminating, vivifying, fertilizing,
transforming and healing function that in our case falls to the
snake (cf. Fig. 3). Two phases are represented: first, a black
sphere, signifying a state of profound depression; and second,
the lightning that strikes into this sphere. Ordinary speech
76 The writings of the physician and philosopher Leone Ebreo (c. 1460-1520)
enjoyed widespread popularity in the sixteenth century and exercised a farreaching influence on his contemporaries and their successors. His work is a
continuation of the Neoplatonist thought developed by the physician and alche
mist Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) in his commentary on Plato's Symposium. Ebreo's
real name was Don Judah Abrabanel, of Lisbon. (Sometimes the texts have
Abrabanel, sometimes Abarbanel.)
77 Cf. the English version, The Philosophy of Love, trans, by Friedeberg-Seeley
and Barnes, pp. 92 and 94. The source of this view can be found in the cabalistic
interpretation of Yesod (Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata, 1677-84).
78 This pseudo-biological terminology fits in with the patient's scientific educa
tion.
79 Another alchemical idea: the synodos Lunae cum Sole, or hierogamy of sun and
moon. Cf. "The Psychology of the Transference," par. 421, n. 17.
80 More on this in "On the Nature of the Psyche," par. 498.
3*4
I
II
Fig. 3. Sketch of a drawing by a young woman patient with
psychogenic depression from the beginning of the treatment
I. State of black hopelessness / II. Beginning of the therapeutic effect
In an earlier picture the sphere lay on the bottom of the sea. As a
series of pictures shows, it arose in the first place because a black snake
had swallowed the sun. There then followed an eight-rayed, completely
black mandala with a wreath of eight silver stars. In the centre was a
black homunculus. Next the black sphere developed a red centre, from
which red rays, or streams of blood, ran out into tentacle-like extremi
ties. The whole thing looked rather like a crab or an octopus. As the
later pictures showed, the patient herself was shut up in the sphere.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
makes use of the same imagery: something "strikes home" in a
"flash of revelation." The only difference is that generally the
image comes first, and only afterwards the realization which
enables the patient to say: "This has struck home."
559
As to the context of Picture 4, Miss X emphasized that what
disturbed her most was the band of quicksilver in Picture 3. She
felt the silvery substance ought to be "inside," the black lines
of force remaining outside to form a black snake. This would
now encircle the sphere. 81 She felt the snake at first as a "ter
rible danger," as something threatening the "integrity of the
sphere." At the point where the snake penetrates the nuclear
membrane, fire breaks out (emotion). Her conscious mind in
terpreted this conflagration as a defensive reaction on the part
of the sphere, and accordingly she tried to depict the attack as
having been repulsed. But this attempt failed to satisfy the
"eyes," though she showed me a pencil sketch of it. She was
obviously in a dilemma: she could not accept the snake, because
its sexual significance was only too clear to her without any
assistance from me. I merely remarked to her: "This is a wellknown process 82 which you can safely accept," and showed her
from my collection a similar picture, done by a man, of a float
ing sphere being penetrated from below by a black phallus-like
object. Later she said: "I suddenly understood the whole process
in a more impersonal way." It was the realization of a law of
life to which sex is subordinated. "The ego was not the centre,
but, following a universal law, I circled round a sun." There
upon she was able to accept the snake "as a necessary part of the
process of growth" and finish the picture quickly and satis
factorily. Only one thing continued to give difficulty: she had
to put the snake, she said, "One hundred per cent at the top, in
the middle, in order to satisfy the eyes." Evidently the uncon
scious would only be satisfied with the most important position
at the top and in the middle—in direct contrast to the picture
81 Here one must think of the world-encircling Ocean and the world-snake
hidden in it: Leviathan, the "dragon in the sea," which, in accordance with the
Egyptian tradition of Typhon (Set) and the sea he rules over, is the devil. "The
devil . . . surrounds the seas and the ocean on all sides" (St. Jerome, Epistolae 1
Part I, p. 12). Further particulars in Rahner, "Antenna Crucis II: Das Meer der
Welt," pp. 89SE.
82 We find the same motif in the two mandalas published by Esther Harding in
Psychic Energy: Its Source and Its Transformation [Pis. XVI, XVII].
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
I had previously shown her. This, as I said, was done by a man
and showed the menacing black symbol entering the mandala
from below. For a woman, the typical danger emanating from
the unconscious comes from above, from the "spiritual" sphere
personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the
chthonic realm of the "world and woman," i.e., the anima pro
jected on to the world.
560
Once again we must recall similar ideas found in Justin's
gnosis: the third of the fatherly angels is Baruch. He is also the
tree of life in paradise. His counterpart on the motherly side is
Naas, the serpent, who is the tree of knowledge of good and
evil.83 When Elohim left Edem, because, as the second member,
he had retreated to the first member of the divine triad (which
consisted of the "Good," the "Father," and Edem), Edem pur
sued the pneuma of the Father, which he had left behind in
man, and caused it to be tormented by Naas ("να Traacus κολά<τ«π
κοΧάζη το ον πνενμα τοΰ Έλωειμ το ίν rots άνθρωποις), NaaS defiled Eve
and also used Adam as a catamite. Edem, however, is the soul;
Elohim is spirit. "The soul is against the spirit, and the spirit
against the soul" (κατά τή-s ψυχής τετάκται).84 This idea sheds light
on the polarity of red and blue in our mandala, and also on the
attack by the snake, who represents knowledge. That is why we
fear knowledge of the truth, in this case, of the shadow. There
fore Baruch sent to mankind Jesus, that they might be led back
to the "Good." But the "Good One is Priapus."85 Elohim is
the swan, Edem is Leda; he the gold, she Danae. Nor should we
forget that the god of revelation has from of old the form
of a snake—e.g., the agathodaimon. Edem too, as a snake-maiden,
has a dual nature, "two-minded, two-bodied" (Sty νώμος, δίσ-ωμο?),
and in medieval alchemy her figure became the symbol of the
androgynous Mercurius.86
561
Let us remember that in Picture 3 Mercurius vulgi, ordinary
quicksilver, encircles the sphere. This means that the mysterious
83 Naas is the same as the snakelike Nous and mercurial serpent of alchemy.
84 Hippolytus, Elenchos, V, 26, 2iff. This tale of Adam and Eve and the serpent
was preserved until well into the Middle Ages.
85 Apparently a play on the words ΐΐρίαττοί and έπρι,οποΐηα-ε τα πάντα. ('created
all"). Elenchos, V, 26, 33.
88 See the illustration from Reusner's Pandora (1588) in my "Paracelsus as a
Spiritual Phenomenon," Fig. B4.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
sphere is enveloped or veiled by a "vulgar" or crude under
standing. The patient herself opined that "the animus veils the
true personality." We shall hardly be wrong in assuming that
a banal, everyday view of the world, allegedly biological, has
here got hold of the sexual symbol and concretized it after the
approved pattern. A pardonable error! Another, more correct
view is so much more subtle that one naturally prefers to fall
back on something well-known and ready to hand, thus grati
fying one's own "rational" expectations and earning the ap
plause of one's contemporaries—only to discover that one has
got hopelessly stuck and has arrived back at the point from
which one set forth on the great adventure. It is clear what is
meant by the ithyphallic serpent: from above comes all that is
aerial, intellectual, spiritual, and from below all that is pas
sionate, corporeal, and dark. The snake, contrary to expecta
tion, turns out to be a pneumatic symbol, 87 a Mercurius spiritualis—a realization which the patient herself formulated by
saying that the ego, despite its capricious manipulation of sex
uality, is subject to a universal law. Sex in this case is therefore
no problem at all, as it has been subjected to a higher trans
formation process and is contained in it; not repressed, only
without an object.
562
Miss X subsequently told me that she felt Picture 4 was the
most difficult, as if it denoted the turning point of the whole
process. In my view she may not have been wrong in this, be
cause the clearly felt, ruthless setting aside of the so beloved
and so important ego is no light matter. Not for nothing is this
"letting go" the sine qua non of all forms of higher spiritual
development, whether we call it meditation, contemplation,
yoga, or spiritual exercises. But, as this case shows, relinquish
ing the ego is not an act of the will and not a result arbitrarily
produced; it is an event, an occurrence, whose inner, compel
ling logic can be disguised only by wilful self-deception.
563
In this case and at this moment the ability to "let go" is of
decisive importance. But since everything passes, the moment
may come when the relinquished ego must be reinstated in its
functions. Letting go gives the unconscious the opportunity it
87 in accordance with the classical view that the snake is πνευματικώτατον ζώον,
'the most spiritual animal." For this reason it was a symbol for the Nous and
the Redeemer.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
has been waiting for. But since it consists of opposites—day and
night, bright and dark, positive and negative—and is good and
evil and therefore ambivalent, the moment will infallibly come
when the individual, like the exemplary Job, must hold fast so
as not to be thrown catastrophically off balance—when the wave
rebounds. The holding fast can be achieved only by a conscious
will, i.e., by the ego. That is the great and irreplaceable sig
nificance of the ego, but one which, as we see here, is none
theless relative. Relative, too, is the gain won by integrating the
unconscious. We add to ourselves a bright and a dark, and
more light means more night.88 The urge of consciousness
towards wider horizons, however, cannot be stopped; they must
needs extend the scope of the personality, if they are not to
shatter it.
Picture 5
564
Picture 5, Miss X said, followed naturally from Picture 4,
with no difficulty. The sphere and the snake have drawn apart.
The snake is sinking downwards and seems to have lost its
threateningness. But the sphere has been fecundated with a
vengeance: it has not only got bigger, but blossoms in the most
vivid colours.89 The nucleus has divided into four; something
like a segmentation has occurred. This is not due to any con
scious reflection, such as might come naturally to a biologically
educated person; the division of the process or of the central
symbol into four has always existed, beginning with the four
sons of Horus, or the four seraphim of Ezekiel, or the birth of
the four Aeons from the Metra (uterus) impregnated by the
pneuma in Barbelo-Gnosis, or the cross formed by the lightning
(snake) in Bohme's system,90 and ending with the tetrameria of
the opus alchymicum and its components (the four elements,
qualities, stages, etc.).91 In each case the quaternity forms a
88 Cf. what St. John of the Cross says about the "dark night of the soul." His
interpretation is as helpful as it is psychological.
89 Hence the alchemical mandala was likened to a rosarium (rose-garden).
90 In Buddhism the "four great kings" (lokapata), the world-guardians, form the
quaternity. Cf. the Samyutta-Nikaya, in Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II, p. 242.
81 "God separated and divided this primordial water by a kind of mystical
distillation into four parts and regions" (Sendivogius, Epist. XIII, in Mangct,
Bibliotheca chemica, 1702, II, p. 496). In Christianos (Berthelot, Alch. grees,
VI, ix, 1 and x, 1) the egg, and matter itself, consist of four components. (Cited
from Xenocrates, ibid., VI, xv, 8.)
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
unity; here it is the green circle at the centre of the four. The
four are undifferentiated, and each of them forms a vortex,
apparently turning to the left. I think I am not mistaken in
regarding it as probable that, in general, a leftward movement
indicates movement towards the unconscious, while a rightward
(clockwise) movement goes towards consciousness. 82 The one is
"sinister," the other "right," "rightful," "correct." In Tibet,
the leftward-moving swastika is a sign of the Bon religion, of
black magic. Stupas and chortens must therefore be circum
ambulated clockwise. The leftward-spinning eddies spin into
the unconscious; the rightward-spinning ones spin out of the
unconscious chaos. The rightward-moving swastika in Tibet is
therefore a Buddhist emblem. 93 (Cf. also Fig. 4.)
6
55
For our patient the process appeared to mean, first and
foremost, a differentiation of consciousness. From the treasures
of her psychological knowledge she interpreted the four as the
four orienting functions of consciousness: thinking, feeling,
sensation, intuition. She noticed, however, that the four were
all alike, whereas the four functions are all unlike. This raised
no question for her, but it did for me. What are these four if
they are not the four functional aspects of consciousness? I
doubted whether this could be a sufficient interpretation of
them. They seemed to be much more than that, and that is
probably the reason why they are not different but identical.
They do not form four functions, different by definition, but
they might well represent the a priori possibility for the forma
tion of the four functions. In this picture we have the quaternity, the archetypal 4, which is capable of numerous
interpretations, as history shows and as I have demonstrated
elsewhere. It illustrates the coming: to consciousness of an un82 In Taoist philosophy, movement to the right means a "falling" life-process,
as the spirit is then under the influence of the feminine p'o-soul, which embodies
the yin principle and is by nature passionate. Its designation as the anima (cf.
my "Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower," pars. 57ΙΪ.) is psy
chologically correct, although this touches only one aspect of it. The p'o-soul
entangles hun, the spirit, in the world-process and in reproduction. A leftward
or backward movement, on the other hand, means the "rising" movement of life.
A "deliverance from outward things" occurs and the spirit obtains control over
the anima. This idea agrees with my findings,
but it does not take account of the
fact that a person can easily have the spirit outside and the anima inside.
83 This was told to me by the Bimpoche of Bhutia Busty, Sikkim.
Fig. 4. Neolithic relief from Tarxien, Malta
The spirals represent vine tendrils.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
conscious content; hence it frequently occurs in cosmogonic
myths. What is the precise significance of the fact that the four
eddies are apparently turning to the left, when the division of
the mandala into four denotes a process of becoming conscious,
is a point about which I would rather not speculate. I lack the
necessary material. Blue means air or pneuma, and the left
ward movement an intensification of the unconscious influence.
Possibly this should be taken as a pneumatic compensation for
the strongly emphasized red colour, which signifies affectivity.
566
The mandala itself is bright red, but the four eddies have
in the main a cool, greenish-blue colour, which the patient
associated with "water." This might hang together with the
leftward movement, since water is a favourite symbol for the
unconscious.94 The green of the circle in the middle signifies
life in the chthonic sense. It is the "benedicta viriditas" of the
alchemists.
567
The problematical thing about this picture is the fact that
the black snake is outside the totality of the symbolic circle. In
order to make the totality actual, it ought really to be inside.
But if we remember the unfavourable significance of the snake,
we shall understand why its assimilation into the symbol of
psychic wholeness presents certain difficulties. If our conjecture
about the leftward movement of the four eddies is correct, this
would denote a trend towards the deep and dark side of the
spirit,95 by means of which the black snake could be assimilated.
The snake, like the devil in Christian theology, represents the
shadow, and one which goes far beyond anything personal and
could therefore best be compared with a principle, such as the
principle of evil.96 It is the colossal shadow thrown by man, of
which our age had to have such a devastating experience. It is
no easy matter to fit this shadow into our cosmos. The view that
we can simply turn our back on evil and in this way eschew it
belongs to the long list of antiquated naiveties. This is sheer
ostrich policy and does not affect the reality of evil in the slight84 Water also symbolizes the "materiality" of the spirit when it has become a
"fixed" doctrine. One is reminded, too, of the blue-green colour in Bohme,
signifying "Liberty."
85 For the double nature of the spirit (Mercurius duplex of the alchemists) see
"The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," supra.
86 Cf. the fiery serpent of Lucifer in Bohme.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
est. Evil is the necessary opposite of good, without which there
would be no good either. It is impossible even to think evil out
of existence. Hence the fact that the black snake remains out
side expresses the critical position of evil in our traditional
view of the world.97
8
56
The background of the picture is pale, the colour of parch
ment. I mention this fact in particular, as the pictures that fol
low show a characteristic change in this respect.
Picture 6
569
57°
The background of Picture 6 is a cloudy grey. The mandala
itself is done in the vividest colours, bright red, green, and
blue. Only where the red outer membrane enters the blue-green
nucleus does the red deepen to blood colour and the pale blue
to a dark ultramarine. The wings of Mercury, missing in the
previous picture, reappear here at the neck of the blood-red
pistons (as previously on the neck of the black snake in Picture
4). But the most striking thing is the appearance of a swastika,
undoubtedly wheeling to the right. (I should add that these pic
tures were painted in 1928 and had no direct connection with
contemporary fantasies, which at that time were still unknown
to the world at large.) Because of its green colour, the swastika
suggests something plantlike, but at the same time it has the
wavelike character of the four eddies in the previous picture.
In this mandala an attempt is made to unite the opposites
red and blue, outside and inside. Simultaneously, the rightward
movement aims at bringing about an ascent into the light of
consciousness, presumably because the background has become
noticeably darker. The black snake has disappeared, but has
begun to impart its darkness to the entire background. To
compensate this, there is in the mandala an upwards move
ment towards the light, apparently an attempt to rescue con
sciousness from the darkening of the environment. The picture
was associated with a dream that occurred a few days before.
Miss X dreamt that she returned to the city after a holiday in
the country. To her astonishment she found a tree growing in
the middle of the room where she worked. She thought: "Well,
with its thick bark this tree can withstand the heat of an apart87 Cf.
"A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," pars. 243ft.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
57 1
57 2
merit." Associations to the tree led to its maternal significance.
The tree would explain the plant motif in the mandala, and its
sudden growth represents the higher level or freeing of con
sciousness induced by the movement to the right. For the same
reason the "philosophical" tree is a symbol of the alchemical
opus, which as we know is an individuation process.
We find similar ideas in Justin's gnosis. The angel Baruch
stands for the pneuma of Elohim, and the "motherly" angel
Naas for the craftiness of Edem. But both angels, as I have said,
were also trees: Baruch the tree of life, Naas the tree of knowl
edge. Their division and polarity are in keeping with the spirit
of the times (second-third centuries A.D.). But in those days, too,
they knew of an individuation process, as we can see from
Hippolytus. 98 Elohim, we are told, set the "prophet" Heracles
the task of delivering the "Father" (the pneuma) from the power
of the twelve wicked angels. This resulted in his twelve labours.
Now the Heracles myth has in fact all the characteristic features
of an individuation process: the journeys to the four direc
tions," four sons, submission to the feminine principle
(Omphale) that symbolizes the unconscious, and the self-sacrifice
and rebirth caused by Deianeira's robe.
The "thick bark" of the tree suggests the motif of protec
tion, which appears in the mandala as the "formation of skins"
(see par. 576). This is expressed in the motif of the protective
black bird's wings, which shield the contents of the mandala
from outside influences. The piston-shaped prolongations of
the peripheral red substance are phallic symbols, indicating the
entry of affectivity into the pneumatic interior. They are ob
viously meant to activate and enrich the spirit dwelling within.
This "spirit" has of course nothing to do with intellect, rather
with something that we would have to call spiritual substance
(pneuma) or—in modern terms—"spiritual life." The under
lying symbolical thought is no doubt the same as the view de
veloped in the Clementine Homilies, that πνεύμα (spirit) and
σώμα (body) are one in God. 100 The mandala, though only a
symbol of the self as the psychic totality, is at the same time a
God-image, for the central point, circle, and quaternity are
Elenchos, V, 26, 27ft.
Psychology and Alchemy, par. 457.
lOOHauck, Realencyclopadie fiir protestantische Theologie, IV, p. 173, li. 59.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
573
well-known symbols for the deity. The impossibility of dis
tinguishing empirically between "self" and "God" leads, in
Indian theosophy, to the identity of the personal and suprapersonal Purusha-Atman. In ecclesiastical as in alchemical litera
ture the saying is often quoted: "God is an infinite circle (or
sphere) whose centre is everywhere and the circumference
nowhere." 101 This idea can be found in full development as
early as Parmenides. I will cite the passage, because it alludes to
the same motifs that underlie our mandala: "For the narrower
rings102 were filled with unmixed Fire, and those next to them
with Night, but between these rushes the portion of Flame.
And in the centre of these is the goddess 103 who guides every
thing; for throughout she rules over cruel Birth and Mating,
sending the female to mate with the male, and conversely again
the male with the female." 104
The learned Jesuit, Nicholas Caussin, apropos the report in
Clement of Alexandria that, on certain occasions, wheels were
rolled round in the Egyptian temples,105 comments that Democritus of Abdera called God νοϋν ev mpl σφαφοει,δΐϊ106 (rnentem in
igne orbiculari, 'mind in the spherical fire'). He goes on: "This
was the view also of Parmenides, who defined God as στίφάνην,
IOiBaunigartner (Die Philosophie des Alanus de Insulis, II, Part 4, p. 118)
traces this saying to a liber Hermetis or liber Trismegisti 1 Cod. Par. 6319 and
Cod. Vat. 3060.
102 Στεφάναι — coronae.
1° 3 Δαίμων ή πάντα κυβέρναι, a feminine daemonium.
104 Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 45.
105 Writings of
Clement of
Alexandria, trans, by Wilson, II, p. 248: "Also
Dionysius Thrax, the grammarian, in his book Respecting the Exposition of
the Symbolical Signification of Circles, says expressly, 'Some signified actions not
by words only, but also by symbols: . . . as the wheel that is turned in the
temples of the gods [by] the Egyptians, and the branches that are given to the
worshippers. For the Thracian Orpheus says:
For the works of mortals on earth are like branches,
Nothing has but one fate in the mind, but all things
Revolve in a circle, nor is it lawful to abide in one place,
But each keeps its own course wherewith it began.'"
[Verses translated from the Overbeck version in German quoted by the author.—
TRANS.]
ioe Diels,
Fragmente der Vorsohratiker, II,
p. 102. Aetius 1
De plac. phil., I, 7,
16.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
'crown,' a circle consisting of glowing light.107 And it has been
very clearly established by Iamblichus, in his book on the mys
teries, that the Egyptians customarily represent God, the
Lord of the world, as sitting in the lotus, a water-plant, the
fruits as well as the leaves of which are round,108 thereby indi
cating the circular motion of the mind, which everywhere re
turns into itself." This is also the origin, he says, of the ritual
transformations or circuits ("circuitiones") that imitate the mo
tion of the heavens. But the Stoics named the heavens a "round
and revolving God" (rotundum et volubilem Deum). Caussin
says it is to this that the "mystical" (mystice = symbolical) ex
planation of Psalm 12 : 8 refers: "In circuitu impii ambulant"
(the ungodly wander in a circle);109 they only walk round the
periphery without ever reaching the centre, which is God. Here
I would mention the wheel motif in mandala symbolism only in
passing, as I have dealt with it in detail elsewhere.110
Picture 7
574
In Picture 7 it has indeed turned to night: the entire sheet
which the mandala is painted on is black. All the light is con
centrated in the sphere. The colours have lost their brightness
but have gained in intensity. It is especially striking that the
black has penetrated as far as the centre, so that something of
what we feared has already occurred: the blackness of the snake
and of the sombre surroundings has been assimilated by the
nucleus and, at the same time, as the picture shows, is com
pensated by a golden light radiating out from the centre. The
rays form an equal-armed cross, to replace the swastika of the
previous picture, which is here represented only by four hooks
107 A reference to Cicero, De natura deorum (trans, by Rackham, p. 31):
"Parmenides . . . invents a purely fanciful something resembling a crown—
stephane is his name for it—an unbroken ring of glowing lights encircling the
sky, which he entitles god; but no one can imagine this to possess divine form,
or sensation." This ironic remark of Cicero's shows that he was the child of
another age, already very far from the primordial images.
108 There are innumerable representations of the sun-child sitting in the lotus.
Cf. Erman, Die Religion der Aegypter, p. 62 and Handbook of Egyptian Re
ligion, p. 26. It is also found on Gnostic gems [Psychology and Alchemy, fig. 5a].
The lotus is the customary seat of the gods in India.
109 [Or, as in the DV1 "The wicked walk round about."—EDITORS.]
110Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 2i4f.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
575
suggesting a rightwards rotation. With the attainment of ab
solute blackness, and particularly its presence in the centre, the
upward movement and rightward rotation seem to have come
to an end. On the other hand, the wings of Mercury have under
gone a noticeable differentiation, which presumably means
that the sphere has sufficient power to keep itself afloat and not
sink down into total darkness. The golden rays forming the
cross bind the four together.111 This produces an inner bond
and consolidation as a defence against destructive influences 112
emanating from the black substance that has penetrated to the
centre. For us the cross symbol always has the connotation of
suffering, so we are probably not wrong in assuming that the
mood of this picture is one of more or less painful suspension—
remember the wings!—over the dark abyss of inner loneliness.
Earlier, I mentioned Bohme's lightning that "makes a cross,"
and I brought this cross into connection with the four elements.
As a matter of fact, John Dee symbolizes the elements by an
equal-armed cross.113 As we said, the cross with a little circle in
it is the alchemical sign for copper (cuprum, from Kypris,
Aphrodite), and the sign for Venus is
Remarkably enough,
^ is the old apothecary's sign for spiritus Tartari (tartaric
acid), which, literally translated, means 'spirit of the under
world.'
is also the sign for red hematite (bloodstone). Hence
there seems to be not only a cross that comes from above, as in
Bohme's case and in our mandala, but also one that comes from
below. In other words, the lightning—to keep to Bohme's image
—can come from below out of the blood, from Venus or from
Tartarus. Bohme's neutral "Salniter" is identical with salt in
general, and one of the signs for this is +¾+. One can hardly
imagine a better sign for the arcane substance, which salt was
IiiThis interpretation was confirmed for me by my Tibetan mentor, Lingdam
Gomchen, abbot of Bhutia Busty: the swastika, he said, is that which "cannot
be broken, divided, or spoilt." Accordingly, it would amount to an inner con
solidation of the mandala.
H2Cf. the similar motif in the mandala of the Amitayur-dhyana Sutra, in "The
Psychology of Eastern Meditation," pars. 917, 930.
H3"Monas hieroglyphica," Theatr. chem. (1602), II, p. 220. Dee also associates
the cross with fire.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
considered to be by the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
alchemists. Salt, in ecclesiastical as well as alchemical usage, is
the symbol for Sapientia and also for the distinguished or elect
personality, as in Matthew 5 : 13: "Ye are the salt of the earth."
576
The numerous wavy lines or layers in the mandala could be
interpreted as representing the formation of layers of skin,
giving protection against outside influences. They serve the
same purpose as the inner consolidation. These cortices prob
ably have something to do with the dream of the tree in the
workroom, which had a "thick bark." The formation of skins is
also found in other mandalas, and it denotes a hardening or
sealing off against the outside, the production of a regular rind
or "hide." It is possible that this phenomenon would account
for the cortices or putamina ('shards') mentioned in the cab
ala. 114 "For such is the name for that which abides outside holi
ness," such as the seven fallen kings and the four Achurayim. 115
From them come the "klippoth" or cortices. As in alchemy,
these are the scoriae or slag, to which adheres the quality of
plurality and of death. In our mandala the cortices are boundary
lines marking off the inner unity and protecting it against the
outer blackness with its disintegrating influences, personified
by the snake. 110 The same motif is expressed by the petals of the
lotus and by the skins of the onion: the outer layers are withered
and desiccated, but they protect the softer, inner layers. The
lotus seat of the Horus-child, of the Indian divinities, and of
IN [Cf. "Answer to Job," Psychology and Religion, par. 595, n. 8.— EDITORS.]
us The seven kings refer to previous aeons, "perished" worlds, and the four
Achurayim are the so-called "back of God": "All belong to Malkhuth; which is
so called because it is last in the system of Aziluth . . . they exist in the depths
of the Shckinah" (Kabbala Denudata, I, p. 72). They form a masculine-feminine
quaternio "of the Father and Mother of the highest, and of the Senex Israel and
Tebhunah" (I, p. 675). The Senex is Ain-Soph or Kether (I, p. 635), Tebhunah
is Binah, intelligence (I, p. 726). The shards also mean unclean spirits.
11QKabbala Denudata, I, p p . 675^ T h e shards also stand for evil. (Zohar,
I, i37aff., II, 34b.). According to a Christian interpretation from the 17th
century, Adam Belial is the body of the Messiah, the "entire body or the host of
shards." (Cf. II Cor. 6: 15.) In consequence of the Fall, the host of shards
irrupted into Adam's body, its outer layers being more infected than the inner
ones. The "Anima Christi" fought and finally
destroyed the shards, which
signify matter. In connection with Adam Belial the text refers to Proverbs 6:12:
"A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth" (AV).
(Kabbala Denudata, II, Appendix, cap. IX, sec. 2, p. 56.)
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
the Buddha must be understood in this sense. Holderlin makes
use of the same image:
Fateless, like the sleeping
Infant, breathe the heavenly ones,
Chastely guarded
In modest bud; their spirits
Blossom eternally . . . 117
577
In Christian metaphor, Mary is the flower in which God lies
hidden; or again, the rose window in which the rex gloriae and
judge of the world is enthroned.
578
The idea of circular layers is to be found, by implication,
in Bohme, for the outermost ring of his three-dimensional
mandala 118 is labelled "will of ye Devill Lucifer," "Abysse (of)
Eternity," "Abyss of ye Darkness," "Hell of Devills," etc, (See
Fig. i.) Bohme says of this in his Aurora (ch. XVII, sec. 6):
"Behold, when Lucifer with his hosts aroused the Wrath-fire in
God's nature, so that God waxed wroth in Nature in the place
of Lucifer, the outermost Birth in Nature acquired another
Quality, wholly wrathful, dry, cold, vehement, bitter, and sour.
The raging Spirit, that before had a subtle, gentle Quality in
Nature, became in his outermost Birth wholly presumptuous
and terrible, and now in his outermost Birth is called the Wind,
or the element Air." In this way the four elements arose—the
earth, in particular, by a process of contraction and desiccation.
579
Cabalistic influences may be conjectured here, though
Bohme knew not much more about the Cabala than did Para
celsus. He regarded it as a species of magic. The four elements
correspond to the four Achurayim. 119 They constitute a sort of
117 "Hyperion's Song of Fate," in Gedichte 1 p. 315. (Trans, as in Jung, Symbols
of Transformation, p. 399.)
IiSConcerning the total vision of the "Life of Spirit and Nature," Bohme says:
"We may then liken it to a round spherical Wheel, which goes on all sides, as
the Wheel in Ezekiel shows" (Mysterium pansophicum, Sammtliche Werke, ed.
Schiebler, VI, p. 416).
11 QQuaestiones Theosophicae (Amsterdam edn., 1682), p, 23. Aurora, XVII. 9,
p. 168, mentions the "seven Spirits, which kindled themselves in their outermost
Birth or Geniture." They are the Spirits of God, "Source-Spirits" of eternal and
timeless Nature, corresponding to the seven planets and forming the "Wheel of
the Centre" (Sig. rer., IX, 8ff., p. 60). These seven Spirits are the seven abovementioned "Qualities" which all come from one mother. She is the "twofold
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
second quaternity, proceeding from the inner, pneumatic quaternity but of a physical nature. The alchemists, too, allude to
the Achurayim. Mennens,120 for instance, says: "And although
the holy name of God reveals the Tetragrammaton or the Four
Letters, yet if you should look at it aright, only three Letters
are found in it. The letter he [n] is found twice, since they are
the same, namely Air and Water, which signifies the Son;
Earth the Father, and Fire the Holy Ghost. Thus the Four
Letters of God's name manifestly signify the Most Holy Trinity
and Matter, which likewise is threefold (triplex)121 . . . and
which is also called the shadow of the same [i.e., of God], and
is named by Moyses 122 the back of God [Dei posteriora], which
seems to be created out of it [matter]." 123 This statement bears
out Bohme's view.
8
5°
To return to our mandala, The original four eddies have
coalesced into the wavy squares in the middle of the picture.
Their place is taken by golden points at the outer rim (de
veloped from the previous picture), emitting rainbow colours.
These are the colours of the peacock's eye, which play a great
role as the cauda pavonis in alchemy.124 The appearance of these
Source, evil and good in all things" (Aurora, p. 27), Cf. the "goddess" in
Parmenides and the two-bodied Edem in Justin's gnosis.
Mennens (1525-1608), a learned Flemish alchemist, wrote a book
entitled Aurei velleris, sive sacrae philosophiae, naturae et artis admirabilium
12 OGulielmus
libri tres (Antwerp, 1604). Printed in Theatr. chem., V (1622), pp. 267(!.
121 "As therefore God is three and one, so also the matter from which he created
all things is tiif.iex and one." This is the alchemical equivalent of the conscious
and uncon-cious triads oi functions in psychology. Cf. supra, "The Phenomenology
of the Spirit in Fairytales," pars. 425 and 436ft.
122 Menncns seems to refer not to the Cabala direct, but to a text ascribed to
Moses, which I have not been able to trace. It is certainly not a reference to
the Greek text called by Berthelot "Chimie de Moise" (Alch. grecs, IV, xxii).
Moses is mentioned now and then in the old literature, and Lenglet du Frcsnoy
(Histoire de la philosophie hermetique, 1742, III, p. 22) cites under No. 26 a
MS from the Vienna Bibliothek entitled: "Moysis Prophetae et Legislatoris
Hebraeorum secretum Chimicum" (Ouvrage supposi).
123 "Aurei velleris," I, cap. X, in Theatr. chem., V, pp. 334^
124 The cauda pavonis is identified by Khunrath with Iris, the "nuncia Dei."
Dorn ("De transmutatione metallorum," Theatr. chem., I, p. 599) explains it as
follows: "This is the bird which flies by night without wings, which the early
dew of heaven, continually acting by upward and downward ascent and descent,
turns into the head of a crow (caput corvi), then into the tail of a peacock, and
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
colours in the opus represents an intermediate stage preceding
the definitive end result. Bohme speaks of a "love-desire or a
Beauty of Colours; and here all Colours arise." 1 2 5 In our mandala, too, the rainbow colours spring from the red layer that
means affectivity. Of the "life of Nature and Spirit" that is
united in the "spherical wheel" 1 2 0 Bohme says: "Thus is made
known to us an eternal Essence of Nature, like to Water and
Fire, which stand as it were mixed into one another. For there
comes a bright-blue colour, like the Lightning of the Fire; and
then it has a form like a Ruby 1 2 7 mingled with Crystals into
one Essence, or like yellow, white, red, and blue mingled in
dark Water: for it is like blue in green, since each still has its
brightness and shines, and the Water only resists their Fire, so
that there is no wasting anywhere, but one eternal Essence in
two Mysteries mingled together, notwithstanding the difference
of two Principles, viz. two kinds of life." The phenomenon of
the colours owes its existence to the "Imagination of the great
Mystery, where a wondrous essential Life is born." 1 2 8
afterwards it acquires the bright wings of a swan, and lastly an extreme redness,
an index of its fiery nature." In Basilides (Hippolytus, Elcnchos, X, 14, 1) the
peacock's egg is synonymous with the sperma mundi, the KOKKOS aivarews- It
contains the "fullness of colours," 365 of them. The golden colour should be
produced from the peacock's eggs, we are told in the Cyranides (Delatte, Textes
latins et vieux frangais relatifs aux Cyranides, p. 171). The light of Mohammed
has the form of a peacock, and the angels were made out of the peacock's sweat
(Aptowitzer, "Arabisch-Jiidische Schopfungstheorien," pp. 209, 233).
125 Sig. rer., XIV, ioff., pp. ii2f.
126 See η. 118.
127 The carbuncle is a synonym for the lapis. "The king bright as a carbuncle"
(Lilius, an old source in the "Rosarium philosophorum," Art. aurif., 1593, II,
p. 329). "A ray . . . in the earth, shining in the darkness after the manner of a
carbuncle gathered into itself" (from Michael Maier's exposition of the theory
of Thomas Aquinas, in Symbola atireae mensae, p. 377). "I found a certain
stone, red, shining, transparent, and brilliant, and in it I saw all the forms of
the elements and also their contraries" (quotation from Thomas in Mylius,
Philosophia reformata, p. 42). For heaven, gold, and carbuncle as synonyms for
the rubedo, see ibid., p. 104. The lapis is "shimmering carbuncle light" (Khunrath, Von hyleal. Chaos, p. 237). Ruby or carbuncle is the name for the corpus
glorificatum (Glauber, Tractatns de natura solium, Part I, p. 42). In Rosencreutz's
Chemical Wedding (1616) the bed-chamber of Venus is lit by carbuncles (p. 97).
Cf. what was said above about anthrax (ruby and cinnabar).
128 Mysterium pansophicum, pp. 416f.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
581
It is abundantly clear from this that Bohme was preoccupied
with the same psychic phenomenon that fascinated Miss X—and
many other patients too. Although Bohme took the idea of the
cauda pavonis and the tetrameria from alchemy, 129 he, like the
alchemists, was working on an empirical basis which has since
been rediscovered by modern psychology. There are products of
active imagination, and also dreams, which reproduce the same
patterns and arrangements with a spontaneity that cannot be
influenced. A good example is the following dream: A patient
d r e a m t t h a t she was i n a d r a w i n g - r o o m . T h e r e was a table with
t h r e e c h a i r s b e s i d e i t . A n u n k n o w n m a n standing beside her
invited her to sit down. For this purpose she fetched a fourth
chair that stood further off. She t h e n sat at t h e table and began
turning over the pages of a book, containing pictures of blue
and r e d cubes, as for a b u i l d i n g g a m e . S u d d e n l y it occurred to
h e r that she had s o m e t h i n g else t o a t t e n d t o . She left t h e room
and w e n t t o a y e l l o w house. I t was r a i n i n g i n torrents, and she
sought shelter u n d e r a g r e e n laurel t r e e .
582
The table, the three chairs, the invitation to sit down, the
other chair that had to be fetched to make four chairs, the
c u b e s , a n d t h e b u i l d i n g g a m e a l l suggest a process of composi
tion. This takes place in stages: a combination first of blue and
red, then of yellow and green. These four colours symbolize
four qualities, as we have seen, which can be interpreted in
various ways. Psychologically this quaternity points to the orient
ing functions of consciousness, of which at least one is uncon
scious and therefore not available for conscious use. Here it
would be the green, the sensation function, 130 because the pa
tient's relation to the real world was uncommonly complicated
and clumsy. The "inferior" function, however, just because of
its unconsciousness, has the great advantage of being contami
nated with the collective unconscious and can be used as a
bridge to span the gulf between conscious and unconscious and
thus restore the vital connection with the latter. This is the
deeper reason \vhy the dream represents the inferior function as
a laurel. The laurel in this dream has the same connection with
129 The chemical causes of the cauda pavonis are probably the iridiscent skin
on molten metals and the vivid colours of certain compounds of mercury and
lead. These two metals were often used as the primary material.
130 Statistically, at least, green is correlated with the sensation function.
A STUDY ΪΝ THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
the processes o£ inner growth as the tree that Miss X dreamt
grew in her room. It is essentially the same tree as the arbor
philosophica of the alchemists, about which I have written in
Psychology and Alchemy. 131 We should also remember that,
according to tradition, the laurel is not injured either by light
ning or by cold—"intacta triumphat," Hence it symbolized the
Virgin Mary, 132 the model for all women, just as Christ is
the model for men. In view of its historical interpretation the
laurel, like the alchemical tree, should be taken in this context
as a symbol of the self. 133 The ingenuousness of patients who
produce such dreams is always very impressive.
8
5 3
To turn back again to our mandala. The golden lines that
end in pistons recapitulate the spermatozoon motif and there
fore have a spermatic significance, suggesting that the quaternity
will be reproduced in a new and more distinct form. In so far
as the quaternity has to do with conscious realization, we can
infer from these symptoms an intensification of the latter, as is
also suggested by the golden light radiating from the centre.
Probably a kind of inner illumination is meant.
584
Two days before painting this picture, Miss X dreamt that
she was in her father's room in their country house. "But my
mother had moved my bed away from the wall into the middle
of the room and had slept in it. I was furious, and moved the
bed back to its former place. In the dream the bed-cover was
red—exactly the red reproduced in the picture."
8
5 5
The mother significance of the tree in her previous dream
has here been taken up by the unconscious: this time the mother
has slept in the middle of the room. This seems to be for Miss X
an annoying intrusion into her sphere, symbolized by the room
of her father, who has an animus significance for her. Her
sphere is therefore a spiritual one, and she has usurped it just
as she usurped her father's room. She has thus identified with
the "spirit." Into this sphere her mother has intruded and in
stalled herself in the centre, at first under the symbol of the
131 [See the index, s.v.; also Jung, "The Philosophical Tree."—E DITORS.]
132 "Lovely laurel, evergreen in all its parts, standing midmost among many
trees smitten by lightning, bears the inscription: 'Untouched it triumphs.' This
similitude refers to Mary the Virgin, alone among all creatures undefiled by any
lightning-flash of sin." Picinelli, Mondo simbolico (1669), Lib. IX, cap. XVI.
133 Cf. "The Spirit Mercurius," par. 241.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
586
tree. She therefore stands for physis opposed to spirit, i.e., for
the natural feminine being which the dreamer also is, but
which she would not accept because it appeared to her as a
black snake. Although she remedied the intrusion at once, the
dark chthonic principle, the black substance, has nevertheless
penetrated to the centre of her mandala, as Picture 7 shows.
But just because of this the golden light can appear: "e tenebris
lux!" We have to relate the mother to Bohme's idea of the
matrix. For him the matrix is the sine qua non of all differenti
ation or realization, without which the spirit remains sus
pended and never comes down to earth. The collision between
the paternal and the maternal principle (spirit and nature)
works like a shock.
After this picture, she felt the renewed penetration of the
red colour, which she associated with feeling, as something dis
turbing, and she now discovered that her "rapport" with me,
her analyst (= father), was unnatural and unsatisfactory. She
was giving herself airs, she said, and was posing as an intelli
gent, understanding pupil (usurpation of spirituality!). But
she had to admit that she felt very silly and was very silly, re
gardless of what I thought about it. This admission brought her
a feeling of great relief and helped her to see at last that sex
was "not, on the one hand, merely a mechanism for producing
children and not, on the other, only an expression of supreme
passion, but was also banally physiological and autoerotic."
This belated realization led her straight into a fantasy state
where she became conscious of a series of obscene images. At the
end she saw the image of a large bird, which she called the
"earth bird," and which alighted on the earth. Birds, as aerial
beings, are well-known spirit symbols. It represented the trans
formation of the "spiritual" image of herself into a more earthy
version that is more characteristic of women. This "tailpiece"
confirms our suspicion that the intensive upward and rightward
movement has come to a halt: the bird is coming down to earth.
This symbolization denotes a further and necessary differentia
tion of Avhat Bohme describes in general as "Love-desire."
Through this differentiation consciousness is not only widened
but also brought face to face with the reality of things, so that
the inner experience is tied, so to speak, to a definite spot.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
587
On the days following, the patient was overcome by feelings
of self-pity. It became clear to her how much she regretted never
having had any children. She felt like a neglected animal or a
lost child. This mood grew into a regular Weltschmerz, and she
felt like the "all-compassionate Tathagata" (Buddha), Only
when she had completely given way to these feelings could she
bring herself to paint another picture. Real liberation comes
not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling,
but only from experiencing them to the full.
Picture 8
588
The thing that strikes us at once in Picture 8 is that almost
the whole interior is filled with the black substance. The bluegreen of the water has condensed to a dark blue quaternity, and
the golden light in the centre turns in the reverse direction,
anti-clockwise: the bird is coming down to earth. That is, the
mandala is moving towards the dark, chthonic depths. It is still
floating—the wings of Mercury show this—but it has come much
closer to the blackness. The inner, undifferentiated quaternity
is balanced by an outer, differentiated one, which Miss X
equated with the four functions of consciousness. To these she
assigned the following colours: yellow = intuition, light blue
= thinking, flesh pink = feeling, brown = sensation.134 Each
of these quarters is divided into three, thus producing the num
ber 12 again. The separation and characterization of the two
quaternities is worth noting. The outer quaternity of wings
appears as a differentiated realization 135 of the undifferentiated
inner one, which really represents the archetype. In the cabala
this relationship corresponds to the quaternity of Merkabah 136
on the one hand and of the Achurayim on the other, and in
Bohme they are the four Spirits of God 137 and the four ele
ments.
13I
The colour correlated with sensation in the mandalas of other persons is
usually green.
135 Cf. the Achurayim quaternity.
136 Chochmah (= face of the man), Binah (= eagle), Gedulah (= lion),
Gebhurah (= bull), the four symbolical angels in Ezekiel's vision.
137 He gives them the names of planets and describes them as the "four Bailiffs,
who hold government in the Mother, the Birth-giver," They are Jupiter, Saturn,
Mars, and Sun. "In these four Forms the Spirit's Birth consists, viz. the true
Spirit both in the inward and outward Being" (Sig. rer., IX, 9ft., p. 61).
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
589
The plantlike form of the cross in the middle of the mandala,
also noted by the patient, refers back to the tree ("tree of the
cross") and the mother.138 She thus makes it clear that this
previously taboo element has been accepted and now holds the
central place. She was fully conscious of this—which of course
was a great advance on her previous attitude.
59°
In contrast to the previous picture there are no inner cortices.
This is a logical development, because the thing they were
meant to exclude is now in the centre, and defence has become
superfluous. Instead, the cortices spread out into the darkness
as golden rings, expanding concentrically like waves. This
would mean a far-reaching influence on the environment ema
nating from the sealed-off self.
591
Four days before she painted this mandala she had the fol
lowing dream: "I drew a young man to the window and, with
a brush dipped in white oil, removed a black fleck from the
cornea of his eye. A little golden lamp then became visible in
the centre of the pupil. T h e young man felt greatly relieved,
and I told him he should come again for treatment. I woke up
saying the words: 'If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light.' " (Matthew 6 : 22.)
598
This dream describes the change: the patient is no longer
identical with her animus. The animus has, so to speak, become
her patient, since he has eye trouble. As a matter of fact the
animus usually sees things "cock-eyed" and often very unclearly.
Here a black fleck on the cornea obscures the golden light shin
ing from inside the eye. He has "seen things too blackly." The
eye is the prototype of the mandala, as is evident from Bohme,
who calls his mandala "The Philosophique Globe, or Eye of ye
Wonders of Eternity, or Looking-Glass of Wisdom." He says:
"The substance and Image of the Soul may be resembled to the
Earth, having a fair Flower growing out of it, and also to the
Fire and Light; as we see that Earth is a Centre, but no life;
yet it is essential, and a fair flower grows out of it, which is not
like Earth . . . and yet the Earth is the Mother of the Flower."
The soul is a "fiery Eye, and similitude of the First Principle,"
a "Centre of Nature." 139
138 The connection between tree and mother, especially in Christian tradition, is
discussed at length in Symbols of Transformation, Part II.
139 A Summary A p p e n d i x of t h e Soul, p. 117.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
593
Our mandala is indeed an "eye," the structure of which sym
bolizes the centre of order in the unconscious. The eye is a hol
low sphere, black inside, and filled with a semi-liquid substance,
the vitreous humour. Looking at it from outside, one sees a
round, coloured surface, the iris, with a dark centre, from which
a golden light shines. Bohme calls it a "fiery eye," in accordance
with the old idea that seeing emanates from the eye. The eye
may well stand for consciousness (which is in fact an organ of
perception), looking into its own background. It sees its own
light there, and when this is clear and pure the whole body is
filled with light. Under certain conditions consciousness has
a purifying effect. This is probably what is meant by Matthew
6 : 22ff., an idea expressed even more clearly in Luke 11 : 33s.
594
The eye is also a well-known symbol for God. Hence Bohme
calls his "Philosophique Globe" the "Eye of Eternity," the
"Essence of all Essences," the "Eye of God." 140
595
By accepting the darkness, the patient has not, to be sure,
changed it into light, but she has kindled a light that illuminates
the darkness within. By day no light is needed, and if you don't
know it is night you won't light one, nor will any light be lit for
you unless you have suffered the horror of darkness. This is not
an edifying text but a mere statement of the psychological facts.
The transition from Picture 7 to Picture 8 gives one a working
idea of what I mean by "accepting the dark principle." It has
sometimes been objected that nobody can form a clear concep
tion of what this means, which is regrettable, because it is an
ethical problem of the first order. Here, then, is a practical ex
ample of this "acceptance," and I must leave it to the philoso
phers to puzzle out the ethical aspects of the process. 141
140 Foriji Questions, pp. 24ff.
1411 do not feel qualified to go into the ethics of what "venerable Mother
Nature" has to do in order to unfold her precious flower. Some people can, and
those whose temperament makes them feel an ethical compulsion must do this
in order to satisfy a need that is also felt by others, Erich Neumann has dis
cussed these problems in a very interesting way in his Tiefenpsyckologie und
Neue Ethik. It will be objected that my respect for Nature is a very unethical
attitude, and I shall be accused of shirking "decisions." People who think like
this evidently know all about good and evil, and why and for what one has to
decide. Unfortunately I do not know all this so precisely, but I hope for my
patients and for myself that everything, light and darkness, decision and agoniz
ing doubt, may turn to "good"—and by "good" I mean a development such as
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Picture ρ
596
In Picture 9 we see for the first time the blue "soul-flower,"
on a red background, also described as such by Miss X (natu
rally without knowledge of Bohme).142 In the centre is the
golden light in the form of a lamp, as she herself stated. The
cortices are very pronounced, but they consist of light (at least
in the upper half of the mandala) and radiate outwards.143 The
light is composed of the rainbow hues of the rising sun; it is a
real cauda pavonis. There are six sets of sunbeams. This recalls
the Buddha's Discourse on the Robe, from the Collection of the
Pali Canon:
His heart overflowing with lovingkindness . . . with compassion
. . . with joyfulness . . . with equanimity, he abides, raying forth
lovingkindness, compassion, joyfulness, equanimity, towards one
quarter of space, then towards the second, then towards the third,
then towards the fourth, and above and below, thus, all around.
Everywhere, into all places the wide world over, his heart over
flowing with compassion streams forth, wide, deep, illimitable, free
from enmity, free from all ill-will. . . .144
597
But a parallel with the Buddhist East cannot be carried
through here, because the mandala is divided into an upper and
a lower half.145 Above, the rings shine many-hued as a rainbow;
below, they consist of brown earth. Above, there hover three
white birds (pneumata signifying the Trinity); below, a goat
is here described, an unfolding which does no damage to either of them but
conserves the possibilities of life.
142 T h e Secret of the Golden Flower had not been published then. Picture
reproduced in it.
143 Cf. Kabbala Denudata, Appendix, ch. IV, sec.
2,
p.
26:
9
was
"The beings created
by the infinite Deity through the First Adam were all spiritual beings, viz. they
were simple, shining acts, being one in themselves, partaking of a being that
may be thought of as the midpoint of a sphere, and partaking of a life that may
be imagined as a sphere emitting rays."
144 "Parable of the Cloth," in T h e First Fifty Discourses from the Collection of
the Middle-Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikaya) of Gotama the Buddha, I,
PP- 39f-> modified. This reference to the Buddha is not accidental, since the
figure of the Tathagata in the lotus seat occurs many times in the patient's
mandalas.
145 Tibetan mandalas are not so divided, but very often they are embedded be
tween heaven and hell, i.e., between the benevolent and the wrathful deities.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
is rising up, accompanied by two ravens (Wotan's birds) 148
and twining snakes. This is not the sort of picture a Buddhist
holy man would make, but that of a Western person with a
Christian background, whose light throws a dark shadow. What
is more, the three birds float in a jet black sky, and the goat,
rising out of dark clay, is shown against a field of bright orange.
This, oddly enough, is the colour of the Buddhist monk's robe,
which was certainly not a conscious intention of the patient.
The underlying thought is clear: no white without black, and
no holiness without the devil. Opposites are brothers, and the
Oriental seeks to liberate himself from them by his nirdvandva
{"free from the two") and his neti neti ("not this, not that"), or
else he puts up with them in some mysterious fashion, as in
Taoism. The connection with the East is deliberately stressed by
the patient, through her painting into the mandala four hexa
grams from the 1 Ching. 1 4 7
598
The sign in the left top half is "Yii, ENTHUSIASM" (No. 16).
It means "Thunder comes resounding out of the earth," i.e., a
movement coming from the unconscious, and expressed by
music and dancing. Confucius comments as follows:
Firm as a rock, what need of a whole day?
The judgment can be known.
The superior man knows what is hidden and what is evident.
He knows weakness, he knows strength as well.
Hence the myriads look up to him.
Enthusiasm can be the source of beauty, but it can also delude.
599
The second hexagram at the top is "Sun, DECREASE" (No. 41).
The upper trigram means Mountain, the lower trigram means
Lake. The mountain towers above the lake and "restrains" it.
That is the "image" whose interpretation points to self-re
straint and reserve, i.e., a seeming decrease of oneself. This is
significant in the light of "ENTHUSIASM." In the top line of the
hexagram, "But [one] no longer has a separate home," the
homelessness of the Buddhist monk is meant. On the psycho
logical level this does not, of course, refer to so drastic a
246 This is the lower triad that corresponds to the Trinity, just as the devil is
occasionally depicted with three heads. Cf. supra, "Phenomenology of the Spirit
in Fairytales," pars. 425 and 4g6flE.
147 Trans, by Wilhelm and Baynes (1967), pp. 67^.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
demonstration of renunciation and independence, but to the
patient's irreversible insight into the conditioned quality of all
relationships, into the relativity of all values, and the transience
of all things.
600
The sign in the bottom half to the right is "Sheng, PUSHING
UPWARD" (NO. 46). "Within the earth, wood grows: The image
of Pushing Upward." It also says: "One pushes upward into an
empty city," and "The king offers him Mount Ch'i." So this
hexagram means growth and development of the personality,
like a plant pushing out of the earth—a theme already antici
pated by the plant motif in an earlier mandala. This is an allu
sion to the important lesson which Miss X has learnt from her
experience: that there is no development unless the shadow is
accepted.
601
The hexagram to the left is "Ting, THE CAULDRON" (NO. 50).
This is a bronze sacrificial vessel equipped with handles and
legs, which held the cooked viands used for festive occasions.
The lower trigram means Wind and Wood, the upper one Fire.
The "Cauldron" is thus made up of "fire over wood," just
as the alchemical vessel consists of fire or water. 148 There is
"delicious food" in it (the "fat of the pheasant"), but it is not
eaten because "the handle of the ting is altered" and its "legs
are broken," making it unusable. But, as a result of "constant
self-abnegation," the personality becomes differentiated ("the
ting has golden carrying rings" and even "rings of jade") and
purified, until it acquires the "hardness and soft lustre" of
precious jade. 149
602
Though the four hexagrams were put into the mandala on
purpose, they are authentic results of preoccupation with the
I Ching. The phases and aspects of my patient's inner process of
development can therefore express themselves easily in the lan
guage of the I Ching, because it too is based on the psychology
of the individuation process that forms one of the main interests
of Taoism and of Zen Buddhism. 150 Miss X's interest in Eastern
philosophy was due to the deep impression which a better
knowledge of her life and of herself had made upon her—an
HSPsychology ana Alchemy, par. 338.
149 The same idea as the transformation into the lapis. Cf. ibid., par. 378.
150 Good examples are The Secret of the Golden Flower and Suzuki, Introduction
to Zen Buddhism.
34Ο
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
impression of the tremendous contradictions in human nature.
The insoluble conflict she was faced with makes her preoccupa
tion with Eastern therapeutic systems, which seem to get along
without conflict, doubly interesting. It may be partly due to this
acquaintance with the East that the opposites, irreconcilable in
Christianity, were not blurred or glossed over, but were seen in
all their sharpness, and in spite (or perhaps just because) of this,
were brought together into the unity of the mandala. Bohme
was never able to achieve this union; on the contrary, in his
mandala the bright and dark semi-circles are turned back to
back. The bright half is labelled *'H. Ghost," the dark half
"Father," i.e., auctor rerum 151 or "First Principle," whereas the
Holy Ghost is the "Second Principle." This polarity is crossed
by the paired opposites "Sonne" and "Earthly Man." The
"Devills" are all on the side of the dark "Father" and constitute
his "Wrath-fire," just as on the periphery of the mandala.
603
Bohme's starting-point was philosophical alchemy, and to
my knowledge he was the first to try to organize the Christian
cosmos, as a total reality, into a mandala.152 The attempt failed,
inasmuch as he was unable to unite the two halves in a circle.
Miss X's mandala, on the other hand, comprises and contains
the opposites, as a result, we may suppose, of the support af
forded by the Chinese doctrine of Yang and Yin, the two meta
physical principles whose co-operation makes the world go
round. The hexagrams, with their firm (yang) and yielding (yin)
lines, illustrate certain phases of this process. It is therefore
right that they should occupy a mediating position between
above and below. Lao-tzu says: "High stands on low." This
indisputable truth is secretly suggested in the mandala: the
three white birds hover in a black field, but the grey-black goat
151 Cf. the above quotation from the "Aureum vellus" of Mennens, where earth
signifies the Father and his "shadow" signifies matter. Bohme's view is thor
oughly consistent with the character of Yahweh, who, despite his role as the
guardian of justice and morality, is amoral and unjust. Cf. Stade, Biblische
Theologie des Alten Testaments, I, pp. 88f.
1521 am purposely disregarding the numerous arrangements in a circle such as
the rex gloriae with the four evangelists, Paradise with its four rivers, the
heavenly hierarchies of Dionysius the Areopagite, etc. These all ignore the
reality of evil, because they regard it as a mere privatio boni and thereby dis
miss it with a euphemism.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
has a bright orange-coloured background. Thus the Oriental
truth insinuates itself and makes possible—at least by symbolic
anticipation—a union of opposites within the irrational life
process formulated by the I Ching. That we are really con
cerned here with opposite phases of one and the same process is
shown by the picture that now follows.
Picture 10
®°4
In Picture 10, begun in Zurich but only completed when
Miss X again visited her motherland, we find the same division
as before into above and below. The "soul-flower" 153 in the
centre is the same, but it is surrounded on all sides by a dark
blue night sky, in which we see the four phases of the moon,
the new moon coinciding with the world of darkness below.
The three birds have become two. Their plumage has darkened,
but on the other hand the goat has turned into two semi-human
creatures with horns and light faces, and only two of the four
snakes remain. A notable innovation is the appearance of two
crabs in the lower, chthonic hemisphere that also represents the
body. The crab has essentially the same meaning as the astro
logical sign Cancer.154 Unfortunately Miss X gave no context
here. In such cases it is usually worth investigating what use has
been made in the past of the object in question. In earlier, prescientific ages hardly any distinction was drawn between longtailed crabs (Macrura j crayfish) and short-tailed crabs (Brachyura). As a zodiacal sign Cancer signifies resurrection, because
the crab sheds its shell.155 The ancients had in mind chiefly
Pagurus bernhardus, the hermit crab. It hides in its shell and
cannot be attacked. Therefore it signifies caution and foresight,
knowledge of coming events.156 It "depends on the moon, and
153 Cf. Rahner, "Die seelenheilende Blume."
154 Cf. Bouchd-Leclercq, L'Astrologie grecque, p. 136: Cancer = "crabe ou
icrevisse." The constellation was usually represented as a tailless crab.
155 "The crab is wont to change with the changing seasons; casting off its old
shell, it puts on a new and fresh one." This, says Picinelli, is an "emblema" of
the resurrection of the dead, and cites Ephesians 4 : 23: ". . . be renewed in the
spirit of your minds" (RSV). (Mondo simbolico, Lib. VI, No. 45.)
156 Foreseeing the flooding of the Nile, the crabs (like the tortoises and crocodiles)
bring their eggs in safety to a higher place. "They foresee the future in their
mind long before it comes," Caussin, Polyhistor symbolicus (1618), p. 44a.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
waxes with it." 157 It is worth noting that the crab appears just
in the mandala in which we see the phases of the moon for the
first time. Astrologically, Cancer is the house of the moon. Be
cause of its backwards and sideways movement, it plays the role
of an unlucky animal in superstition and colloquial speech
("crabbed," "catch a crab," etc.). Since ancient times cancer
(καρκίνο?) has been the name for a malignant tumour of the
glands. Cancer is the zodiacal sign in which the sun begins to
retreat, when the days grow shorter. Pseudo-Kallisthenes relates
that crabs dragged Alexander's ships down into the sea.158
"Karkinos" was the name of the crab that bit Heracles in the
foot in his fight with the Lernaean monster. In gratitude, Hera
set her accomplice among the stars.159
6°5
In astrology, Cancer is a feminine and watery sign,160 and
the summer solstice takes place in it. In the melothesiae 161 it
is correlated with the breast. It rules over the Western sea. In
Propertius it makes a sinister appearance: "Octipedis Cancri
terga sinistra time" (Fear thou the ill-omened back of the eightfooted crab).162 De Gubernatis says: "The crab . . . causes
now the death of the solar hero and now that of the monster." 163
The Panchatantra (V, 2) relates how a crab, which the mother
gave to her son as apotropaic magic, saved his life by killing a
black snake.164 As De Gubernatis thinks, the crab stands now for
the sun and now for the moon,185 according to whether it goes
forwards or backwards.
606
Miss X was born in the first degrees of Cancer (actually
about 30). She knew her horoscope and was well aware of the
significance of the moment of birth; that is, she realized that
the degree of the rising sign (the ascendent) conditions the
individuality of the horoscope. Since she obviously guessed the
157 Masenius,
p. 768.
Speculum imaginum veritatis occultae
(1714),
cap. LXVII, 30,
158 De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, II, p. 355.
159 Roscher, Lexikon, II, col. 959, s.v. "Karkinos." The same motif occurs in a
dream described in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, pars. 8o£f.
160 In Egypt, the heliacal rising of Cancer indicates the beginning of the annual
flooding
p. 137.
of the Nile and hence the beginning of the year. Bouch^-Leclercq,
ΙΒΙ [Cf. "Psychology and Religion," p. 67, n. 5.—EDITORS.]
163 De Gubernatis, II, p. 356.
162 propertius, trans, by Butler, p. 875.
164 The Panchatantra Reconstructed, ed. by Edgerton, II, pp. 403^ Cf. also
Hoffmann-Krayer et al., Handworterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens, V, col.
448, s.v. "Krebs."
I 05 De Gubernatis, II, p. 356.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
horoscope's affinity with the mandala, she introduced her in
dividual sign into the painting that was meant to express her
psychic self. 168
60 7
The essential conclusion to be drawn from Picture 10 is that
the dualities which run through it are always inwardly bal
anced, so that they lose their sharpness and incompatibility. As
Multatuli says: "Nothing is quite true, and even that is not
quite true." But this loss of strength is counterbalanced by the
unity of the centre, where the lamp shines, sending out coloured
rays to the eight points of the compass. 167
608
Although the attainment of inner balance through sym
metrical pairs of opposites was probably the main intention of
this mandala, we should not overlook the fact that the duplica
tion motif also occurs when unconscious contents are about to
become conscious and differentiated. They then split, as often
happens in dreams, into two identical or slightly different halves
corresponding to the conscious and still unconscious aspects of
the nascent content. I have the impression, from this picture,
that it really does represent a kind of solstice or climax, where
decision and division take place. The dualities are, at bottom,
Yes and No, the irreconcilable opposites, but they have to be
held together if the balance of life is to be maintained. This can
only be done by holding unswervingly to the centre, where
action and suffering balance each other. It is a path "sharp as the
edge of a razor." A climax like this, where universal opposites
clash, is at the same time a moment when a wide perspective
often opens out into the past and future. This is the psycho
logical moment when, as the consensus gentium has established
since ancient times, synchronistic phenomena occur—that is,
when the far appears near: sixteen years later, Miss X became
fatally ill with cancer of the breast. 168
166 Her horoscope shows four earth signs but no air sign. The danger coming
from the animus is reflected in ) • ¢.
167 Cf. the Buddhist conception of the "eight points of the compass" in the
Amitayur-dhyana Sutra; cf. "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," pp. 5603.
168 ι do not hesitate to take the synchronistic phenomena that underlie astrology
seriously. Just as there is an eminently psychological reason for the existence of
alchemy, so too in the case «Ε astiologv. Nowadays it is no longer interesting to
know how far these two fields are abeirations; we should rather investigate the
psychological foundations on which they rest. [Cf. Jung, "Synchronicity: An
Acausal Connecting Principle," /JOIS/M.—EDITORS.]
A STUDY XN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
Picture n
609
Here I will only mention that the coloured rays emanating
from the centre have become so rarified that, in the next few
pictures, they disappear altogether. Sun and moon are now out
side, no longer included in the microcosm of the mandala. The
sun is not golden, but has a dull, ochrous hue and in addition
is clearly turning to the left: it is moving towards its own ob
scuration, as had to happen after the cancer picture (solstice).
The moon is in the first quarter. The roundish masses near the
sun are probably meant to be cumulus clouds, but with their
grey-red hues they look suspiciously like bulbous swellings. The
interior of the mandala now contains a quincunx of stars, the
central star being silver and gold. The division of the mandala
into an aerial and an earthy hemisphere has transferred itself
to the outside world and can no longer be seen in the interior.
The silvery rim of the aerial hemisphere in the preceding pic
ture now runs round the entire mandala and recalls the band
of quicksilver that, as Mercurius vulgaris, "veils the true per
sonality." At all events, it is probable that the influence and
importance of the outside world are becoming so strong in this
picture as to bring about an impairment and devaluation of
the mandala. It does not break down or burst (as can easily
happen under similar circumstances), but is removed from the
telluric influence through the symbolical constellation of stars
and heavenly bodies.
Pictures 12-24
Sl °
hl
In Picture 12 the sun is in fact sinking below the horizon
and the moon is coming out of the first quarter. The radiation
of the mandala has ceased altogether, but the equivalents of
sun and moon, and also of the earth, have been assimilated into
it. A remarkable feature is its sudden inner animation by two
human figures and various animals. The constellation character
of the centre has vanished and given way to a kind of flower
motif. What this animation means cannot be established, un
fortunately, as we have no commentary.
In Picture 13 the source of radiation is no longer in the
mandala but outside, in the shape of the full moon, from which
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
rings of rainbow-coloured light radiate in concentric circles.
The mandala is laced together by four black and golden snakes,
the heads of three of them pointing to the centre, while the
fourth rears upwards. In between the snakes and the centre
there are indications of the spermatozoon motif. This may mean
an intensive penetration on the part of the outside world, but
it could also mean magical protection. The breaking down of
the quaternity into 3 plus 1 is in accord with the archetype.189
6*»
In Picture 14 the mandala is suspended over the lit-up ravine
of Fifth Avenue, New York, whither Miss X in the meantime
returned. On the blue flower in the centre the coniunctio of the
"royal" pair is represented by the sacrificial fire burning be
tween them. The King and Queen are assisted by two kneeling
figures of a man and a woman. It is a typical marriage quaternio,
and for an understanding of its psychology I must refer the
reader to my account in the "Psychology of the Transference." 17β
This inner bond should be thought of as a compensatory "con
solidation" against disintegrating influences from without.
613
In Picture 15 the mandala floats between Manhattan and
the sea. It is daylight again, and the sun is just rising. Out of
the blue centre blue snakes penetrate into the red flesh of the
mandala: the enantiodromia is setting in, after the introversion
of feeling caused by the shock of New York had passed its
climax. The blue colour of the snakes indicates that they have
acquired a pneumatic nature.
®'4
From Picture 16 onwards, the drawing and painting tech
nique shows a decided improvement. The mandalas gain in
aesthetic value. In Picture 17 a kind of eye motif appears, which
I have also observed in the mandalas of other persons. It seems
to me to link up with the motif of polyophthalmia and to point
to the peculiar nature of the unconscious, which can be regarded
as a "multiple consciousness." I have discussed this question in
detail elsewhere.171 (See also Fig. 5.)
iee An instance of the axiom of Maria. Other well-known examples are Horus
and his 4 (or 3 4- 1) sons, the 4 symbolical figures
in Ezekiel, the 4 evangelists
and—last but not least—the 3 synoptic gospels and the 1 gospel of St. John.
"0 [Ch.
2,
pp. 21 iff.—EDITORS.]
171 "On the Nature of the Psyche," sec. 6.
Fig. 5. Mandala by a woman patient
Aged 58, artistic and technically accomplished. In the centre is the egg
encircled by the snake; outside, apotropaic wings and eyes. The
mandala is exceptional in that it has a pentadic structure. (The patient
also produced triadic mandalas. She was fond of playing with forms
irrespective of their meaning—a consequence of her artistic gift.)
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
6«5
The enantiodromia only reached its climax the following
year, in Picture 19. 172 In that picture the red substance is ar
ranged round the golden, four-rayed star in the centre, and the
blue substance is pushing everywhere to the periphery. Here
the rainbow-coloured radiation of the mandala begins again for
the first time, and from then on was maintained for over ten
years (in mandalas not reproduced here).
6 '6
I will not comment on the subsequent pictures, nor repro
duce them all—as I say, they extend over more than ten years—
because I feel I do not understand them properly. In addition,
they came into my hands only recently, after the death of the
patient, and unfortunately without text or commentary. Under
these circumstances the work of interpretation becomes very
uncertain, and is better left unattempted. Also, this case was
meant only as an example of how such pictures come to be
produced, what they mean, and what reflections and observa
tions their interpretation requires. It is not intended to demon
strate how an entire lifetime expresses itself in symbolic form.
The individuation process has many stages and is subject to
many vicissitudes, as the Active course of the opus alchymicum
amply shows.
Conclusion
61 7
Our series of pictures illustrates the initial stages of the
way of individuation. It would be desirable to know what hap
pens afterwards. But, just as neither the philosophical gold nor
the philosophers' stone was ever made in reality, so nobody has
ever been able to tell the story of the whole way, at least not to
mortal ears, for it is not the story-teller but death who speaks
the final "consummatum est." Certainly there are many things
worth knowing in the later stages of the process, but, from the
point of view of teaching as well as of therapy, it is important
172 [Pictures 18-24, which were not reproduced with the earlier versions of this
essay, were chosen by Professor Jung from among those painted by the patient
after the termination of analytical work. I he dates of the entire series of pic
tures were as follows: 1-6, Oct. 1928; 7
Nov. 1928; 10, Jan.; 11, Feb.; 12, June;
13, Aug.; 14, Sept.; 15, Oct.; 16. :7, No*·., all 1920; iS, Feb. 1930; ig, Aug. 1930;
20, March 1931; at, July 1933; 22. Aug itiHS 23, 1935; 24, "Night-blooming
cereus, done May 1938, on last trip to Jung" !,patient's notation).—EDITORS.]
348
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
not to skip too quickly over the initial stages. As these pictures
are intuitive anticipations of future developments, it is worth
while lingering over them for a long time, in order, with their
help, to integrate so many contents of the unconscious into con
sciousness that the latter really does reach the stage it sees ahead.
These psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the
tempo of intellectual developments. Indeed, their very first goal
is to bring a consciousness that has hurried too far ahead into
contact again with the unconscious background with which it
should be connected. This was the problem in our case too.
Miss X had to turn back to her "motherland" in order to find
her earth again— vestigia retro 1 It is a task that today faces not
only individuals but whole civilizations. What else is the mean
ing of the frightful regressions of our time? The tempo of the
development of consciousness through science and technology
was too rapid and left the unconscious, which could no longer
keep up with it, far behind, thereby forcing it into a defensive
position which expresses itself in a universal will to destruction.
The political and social isms of our day preach every con
ceivable ideal, but, under this mask, they pursue the goal of
lowering the level of our culture by restricting or altogether
inhibiting the possibilities of individual development. They do
this partly by creating a chaos controlled by terrorism, a primi
tive state of affairs that affords only the barest necessities of life
and surpasses in horror the worst times of the so-called "Dark"
Ages. It remains to be seen whether this experience of degrada
tion and slavery will once more raise a cry for greater spiritual
freedom.
This problem cannot be solved collectively, because the
masses are not changed unless the individual changes. At the
same time, even the best-looking solution cannot be forced
upon him, since it is a good solution only when it is combined
with a natural process of development. It is therefore a hope
less undertaking to stake everything on collective recipes and
procedures. The bettering of a general ill begins with the in
dividual, and then only when he makes himself and not others
responsible. This is naturally only possible in freedom, but not
under a rule of force, whether this be exercised by a self-elected
tyrant or by one thrown up by the mob.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
619
620
621
The initial pictures in our series illustrate the characteristic
psychic processes which set in the moment one gives a mind to
that part of the personality which has remained behind, for
gotten. Scarcely has the connection been established when sym
bols of the self appear, trying to convey a picture of the total
personality. As a result of this development, the unsuspecting
modern gets into paths trodden from time immemorial—the
via Sancta j whose milestones and signposts are the religions. 173
He will think and feel things that seem strange to him, not to
say unpleasant. Apuleius relates that in the Isis mysteries he
"approached the very gates of death and set one foot on Proser
pina's threshold, yet was permitted to return, rapt through all
the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining as if it were
noon; I entered the presence of the gods of the underworld and
the gods of the upper world, stood near and worshipped
them." m Such experiences are also expressed in our mandalas;
that is why we find in religious literature the best parallels to
the symbols and moods of the situations they formulate. These
situations are intense inner experiences which can lead to last
ing psychic growth and a ripening and deepening of the per
sonality, if the individual affected by them has the moral ca
pacity for πίστις, loyal trust and confidence. They are the age-old
psychic experiences that underlie "faith" and ought to be its
unshakable foundation—and not of faith alone, but also of
knowledge.
Our case shows with singular clarity the spontaneity of the
psychic process and the transformation of a personal situation
into the problem of individuation, that is, of becoming
whole, which is the answer to the great question of our day:
How can consciousness, our most recent acquisition, which has
bounded ahead, be linked up again with the oldest, the un
conscious, which has lagged behind? The oldest of all is the
instinctual foundation. Anyone who overlooks the instincts will
be ambuscaded by them, and anyone who does not humble him
self will be humbled, losing at the same time his freedom, his
most precious possession.
Always when science tries to describe a "simple" life-process,
the matter becomes complicated and difficult. So it is no wonder
173
Isaiah 45 : 8: "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy
174 The Golden Ass, trans, by Graves, p. 286.
Way" (RSV),
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
that the details of a transformation process rendered visible
through active imagination make no small demands on our
understanding. In this respect they may be compared with all
other biological processes. These, too, require specialized knowl
edge to become comprehensible. Our example also shows, how
ever, that this process can begin and run its course without any
special knowledge having to stand sponsor to it. But if one
wants to understand anything of it and assimilate it into con
sciousness, then a certain amount of knowledge is needed. If
the process is not understood at all, it has to build up an un
usual intensity so as not to sink back again into the unconscious
without result. But if its affects rise to an unusual pitch, they
will enforce some kind of understanding. It depends on the
correctness of this understanding whether the consequences
turn out more pathologically or less. Psychic experiences, ac
cording to whether they are rightly or wrongly understood,
have very different effects on a person's development. It is one
of the duties of the psychotherapist to acquire such knowledge
of these things as will enable him to help his patient to an
adequate understanding. Experiences of this kind are not with
out their dangers, for they are also, among other things, the
matrix of the psychoses. Stiffnecked and violent interpretations
should under all circumstances be avoided, likewise a patient
should never be forced into a development that does not come
naturally and spontaneously. But once it has set in, he should
not be talked out of it again, unless the possibility of a psychosis
has been definitely established. Thorough psychiatric expe
rience is needed to decide this question, and it must constantly
be borne in mind that the constellation of archetypal images
and fantasies is not in itself pathological. The pathological
element only reveals itself in the way the individual reacts to
them and how he interprets them. The characteristic feature of
a pathological reaction is, above all, identification with the
archetype. This produces a sort of inflation and possession by
the emergent contents, so that they pour out in a torrent which
no therapy can stop. Identification can, in favourable cases,
sometimes pass off as a more or less harmless inflation. But in
all cases identification with the unconscious brings a weaken
ing of consciousness, and herein lies the danger. You do not
"make" an identification, you do not "identify yourself," but
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
you experience your identity with the archetype in an uncon
scious way and so are possessed by it. Hence in more difficult
cases it is far more necessary to strengthen and consolidate the
ego than to understand and assimilate the products of the un
conscious. The decision must be left to the diagnostic and thera
peutic tact of the analyst.
#
622
This paper is a groping attempt to make the inner processes
of the mandala more intelligible. They are, as it were, selfdelineations of dimly sensed changes going on in the back
ground, which are perceived by the "reversed eye" and rendered
visible with pencil and brush, just as they are, uncomprehended
and unknown. The pictures represent a kind of ideogram of
unconscious contents. I have naturally used this method on my
self too and can affirm that one can paint very complicated
pictures without having the least idea of their real meaning.
While painting them, the picture seems to develop out of itself
and often in opposition to one's conscious intentions. It is in
teresting to observe how the execution of the picture frequently
thwarts one's expectations in the most surprising way. The
same thing can be observed, sometimes even more clearly, when
writing down the products of active imagination. 175
6z 3
The present work may also serve to fill a gap I myself have
felt in my exposition of therapeutic methods. I have written
very little on active imagination, but have talked about it a
great deal. I have used this method since 1916, and I sketched
it out for the first time in "The Relations between the Ego and
the Unconscious." I first mentioned the mandala in 1929, in
The Secret of the Golden Flower. 170 For at least thirteen years
I kept quiet about the results of these methods in order to avoid
any suggestion. I wanted to assure myself that these things—
mandalas especially—really are produced spontaneously and
were not suggested to the patient by my own fantasy. I was then
175 Case material in Meier, "Spontanmanifestationen des kollektiven Unbewussten," 284ft.; Banziger, "Personliches und Archetypisches im Individuationsprozess," p. 272; Gerhard Adler, Studies in Analytical Psychology, pp. goff.
ιτβ Active imagination is also mentioned in "The Aims of Psychotherapy," pars.
101 ff. Cf. also "The Transcendent Function." For other pictures of mandalas see
the next paper in the present vol.
A STUDY IN THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUATION
able to convince myself, through my own studies, that mandalas
were drawn, painted, carved in stone, and built, at all times and
in all parts of the world, long before my patients discovered
them. I have also seen to my satisfaction that mandalas are
dreamt and drawn by patients who were being treated by
psychotherapists whom I had not trained. In view of the im
portance and significance of the mandala symbol, special pre
cautions seemed to be necessary, seeing that this motif is one
of the best examples of the universal operation of an arche
type. In a seminar on children's dreams, which I held in 193940, 177 I mentioned the dream of a ten-year-old girl who had
absolutely no possibility of ever hearing about the quaternity
of God. The dream was written down by the child herself and
was sent to me by an acquaintance: "Once in a dream I saw an
animal that had lots of horns. It spiked up other little ani
mals with them. It wriggled like a snake and that was how it
lived. Then a blue fog came out of all the four corners, and it
stopped eating. Then God came, but there were really four
Gods in the four corners. Then the animal died, and all the
animals it had eaten came out alive again."
62 4
This dream describes an unconscious individuation process:
all the animals are eaten by the one animal. Then comes the
enantiodromia: the dragon changes into pneuma, which stands
for a divine quaternity. Thereupon follows the apocatastasis, a
resurrection of the dead. This exceedingly "unchildish" fantasy
can hardly be termed anything but archetypal. Miss X, in Pic
ture 12, also put a whole collection of animals into her mandala
—two snakes, two tortoises, two fishes, two lions, two pigs, a
goat and a ram. 178 Integration gathers many into one. To the
child who had this dream, and to Miss X likewise, it was cer
tainly not known that Origen had already said (speaking of the
sacrificial animals): "Seek these sacrifices within thyself, and
thou wilt find them within thine own soul. Understand that
thou hast within thyself floe ks of cattle . . . flocks of sheep and
1 7 7 [Psychologische Interpretation v o n K i n d e r t r a u m e n , winter semester, 1939-40,
Federal Polytechnic Institute, Zurich (mimeographed stenographic record). The
same dream is discussed by Dr. Jacobi in Complex/Archetype/Symbol, pp. 139^.—
JEDrTORS.]
its One thinks here of a Noah's Ark that crosses over the waters of death and
leads to a rebirth of all life.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
flocks of goats. . . . Understand that the birds of the sky are
also within thee. Marvel not if we say that these are within
thee, but understand that thou thyself art even another little
world, and hast within thee the sun and the moon, and also the
stars." 179
625
The same idea occurs again in another passage, but this
time it takes the form of a psychological statement: "For look
upon the countenance of a man who is at one moment angry,
at the next sad, a short while afterward joyful, then troubled
again, and then contented. . . . See how he who thinks himself
one is not one, but seems to have as many personalities as he
has moods, as also the Scripture says: A fool is changed as the
moon. . . .180 God, therefore, is unchangeable, and is called
one for the reason that he changes not. Thus also the true
imitator of God, who is made after God's image, is called one
and the selfsame [unus et ipse] when he comes to perfection, for
he also, when he is fixed on the summit of virtue, is not changed,
but remains alway one. For every man, whiles he is in wicked
ness [malitia], is divided among many things and torn in many
directions; and while he is in many kinds of evil he cannot be
called one." 181
626
Here the many animals are affective states to which man is
prone. The individuation process, clearly alluded to in this
passage, subordinates the many to the One. But the One is God,
and that which corresponds to him in us is the imago Dei, the
God-image. But the God-image, as we saw from Jakob Bohme,
expresses itself in the mandala.
17® In Leviticum Homiliae, V, 2 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 449).
180 Ecclesiasticus 27 : 11.
181 In libros Regnorum homiliae, I, 4 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, cols. 998-99).
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM 1
627
In what follows I shall try to describe a special category of
symbols, the mandala, with the help of a wide selection of
pictures. I have dealt with this theme on several occasions be
fore, and in Psychology and Alchemy I gave a detailed account,
with running commentary, of the mandala symbols that came
up in the course of an individual analysis. I repeated the at
tempt in the preceding paper of the present volume, but there
the mandalas did not derive from dreams but from active
imagination. In this paper I shall present mandalas of the most
varied provenance, on the one hand to give the reader an im
pression of the astonishing wealth of forms produced by indi
vidual fantasy, and on the other hand to enable him to form
some idea of the regular occurrence of the basic elements.
628
As regards the interpretation, I must refer the reader to the
literature. In this paper I shall content myself with hints, be
cause a more detailed explanation would lead much too far, as
the mandalas described in "Psychology and Religion" and in
the preceding paper of this volume show.
6a 9
The Sanskrit word mandala means 'circle.' It is the Indian
term for the circles drawn in religious rituals. In the great
temple of Madura, in southern India, I saw how a picture of
this kind was made. It was drawn by a woman on the floor of
the mandapam (porch), in coloured chalks, and measured about
ten feet across. A pandit who accompanied me said in reply to
my questions that he could give me no information about it.
Only the women who drew such pictures knew what they
![First published, as "Dber Mandalasymbolik," in Gestaltungen des Unbewussten
(Psychologische Abhandlungen, VII; Zurich, 1950). The illustrations had origi
nally been collected for a seminar which Professor Jung gave at Berlin in 1930.
Nine of them (Figs. 1, 6, 9, 25, 26, 28, 36, 37, 38) were published with brief
comments as "Examples of European Mandalas" in Das Geheimnis der goldenen
Bliite, by Jung and Richard Wilhelm (Munich, 1929; 2nd edn., Zurich, 1938),
translated by C. F. Baynes as The Secret of the Golden Flower (London and New
York, 1931; rev, edn., 1962); subsequently published in Coll. Works, vol. 13. In his
Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung acknowledged having painted the mandalas
in Figs. 6 and 36 (thus also those in Figs. 28 and 29) and the frontispiece; see U.S.
edn., pp. 197, 195; Brit, edn., pp. i88fE„ 187.—EDITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
meant. The woman herself was non-committal; she evidently
did not want to be disturbed in her work. Elaborate mandalas,
executed in red chalk, can also be found on the whitewashed
walls of many huts. The best and most significant mandalas are
found in the sphere of Tibetan Buddhism.2 I shall use as an
example a Tibetan mandala, to which my attention was drawn
by Richard Wilhelm.
Figure ι
63°
A mandala of this sort is known in ritual usage as a yantra,
an instrument of contemplation. It is meant to aid concentra
tion by narrowing down the psychic field of vision and restrict
ing it to the centre. Usually the mandala contains three circles,
painted in black or dark blue. They are meant to shut out the
outside and hold the inside together. Almost regularly the outer
rim consists of fire, the fire of concupiscentia, 'desire,' from
which proceed the torments of hell. The horrors of the burial
ground are generally depicted on the outer rim. Inside this is a
garland of lotus leaves, characterizing the whole mandala as a
Padmaj 'lotus-flower.' Then comes a kind of monastery court
yard with four gates. It signifies sacred seclusion and concentra
tion. Inside this courtyard there are as a rule the four basic
colours, red, green, white, and yellow, which represent the four
directions and also the psychic functions, as the Tibetan Book
of the Dead 3 shows. Then, usually marked off by another magic
circle, comes the centre as the essential object or goal of con
templation.
6S1
This centre is treated in very different ways, depending on
the requirements of the ritual, the grade of initiation of the
contemplator, and the sect he belongs to. As a rule it shows
Shiva in his world-creating emanations. Shiva, according to
Tantric doctrine, is the One Existent, the Timeless in its perfect
state. Creation begins when this unextended point—known as
Shiva-bindu—appears in the eternal embrace of its feminine
side, the Shakti. It then emerges from the state of being-in-itself
and attains the state of being-for-itself, if I may use the Hegelian
terminology.
2 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 122S.
3 [Cf. Jung, Psychological Commentary on the Tibetan Book of
par. 850.—EDITORS.]
the Dead,
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Figure ;-/
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
632
In kundalini yoga symbolism, Shakti is represented as a snake
wound three and a half times round the lingam, which is Shiva
in the form of a phallus. This image shows the possibility of
manifestation in space. From Shakti comes Maya, the building
material of all individual things; she is, in consequence, the
creatrix of the real world. This is thought of as illusion, as
being and not-being. It is, and yet remains dissolved in Shiva.
Creation therefore begins with an act of division of the opposites
that are united in the deity. From their splitting arises, in a
gigantic explosion of energy, the multiplicity of the world.
633
The goal of contemplating the processes depicted in the
mandala is that the yogi shall become inwardly aware of the
deity. Through contemplation, he recognizes himself as God
again, and thus returns from the illusion of individual exist
ence into the universal totality of the divine state.
634
As I have said, mandala means 'circle.' There are innumer
able variants of the motif shown here, but they are all based on
the squaring of a circle. Their basic motif is the premonition of a
centre of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche,
to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged,
and which is itself a source of energy. The energy of the cen
tral point is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion
and urge to become what one is, just as every organism is driven
to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter
what the circumstances. This centre is not felt or thought of as
the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the
centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by
a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self—the
paired opposites that make up the total personality. This total
ity comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal un
conscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the
collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all
mankind. A certain number of these, however, are permanently
or temporarily included within the scope of the personality and,
through this contact, acquire an individual stamp as the shadow,
anima, and animus, to mention only the best-known figures.
The self, though on the one hand simple, is on the other hand
an extremely composite thing, a "conglomerate soul," to use
the Indian expression.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
635
Lamaic literature gives very detailed instructions as to how
such a circle must be painted and how it should be used. Form
and colour are laid down by tradition, so the variants move
within fairly narrow limits. The ritual use of the mandala is
actually non-Buddhist; at any rate it is alien to the original
Hinayana Buddhism and appears first in Mahayana Buddhism.
636
The mandala shown here depicts the state of one who has
emerged from contemplation into the absolute state. That is
why representation of hell and the horrors of the burial ground
are missing. The diamond thunderbolt, the dorje in the centre,
symbolizes the perfect state where masculine and feminine are
united. The world of illusions has finally vanished. All energy
has gathered together in the initial state.
637
The four dorjes in the gates of the inner courtyard are
meant to indicate that life's energy is streaming inwards; it has
detached itself from objects and now returns to the centre.
When the perfect union of all energies in the four aspects of
wholeness is attained, there arises a static state subject to no
more change. In Chinese alchemy this state is called the "Dia
mond Body," corresponding to the corpus incorruptibile of
medieval alchemy, which is identical with the corpus glorificationis of Christian tradition, the incorruptible body of resur
rection. This mandala shows, then, the union of all opposites,
and is embedded between yang and yin, heaven and earth; the
state of everlasting balance and immutable duration.
6S8
For our more modest psychological purposes we must aban
don the colourful metaphysical language of the East. What yoga
aims at in this exercise is undoubtedly a psychic change in the
adept. The ego is the expression of individual existence. The
yogin exchanges his ego for Shiva or the Buddha; in this way
he induces a shifting of the psychological centre of personality
from the personal ego to the impersonal non-ego, which is now
experienced as the real "Ground" of the personality.
639
In this connection I would like to mention a similar Chinese
conception, namely the system on which the I Ching is based.
Figure 2
®4°
In the centre is ch'ien, 'heaven,' from which the four emana
tions go forth, like the heavenly forces extending through space.
Thus we have:
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
ch'ien: self-generated creative energy, corresponding to
Shiva.
heng: all-pervading power.
yuen: generative power.
Ii: beneficent power.
ching: unchangeable, determinative power.
64«
Round this masculine power-centre lies the earth with its
formed elements. It is the same conception as the Shiva-Shakti
union in kundalini yoga, but here represented as the earth re
ceiving into itself the creative power of heaven. The union of
heaven with kun, the feminine and receptive, produces the
tetraktys, which, as in Pythagoras, underlies all existence.
642
The "River Map" is one of the legendary foundations of the
I Ching, which in its present form derives partly from the
twelfth century B.C. According to the legend, a dragon dredged
the magical signs of the "River Map" from a river. On it the
sages discovered the drawing, and in the drawing the laws of
the world-order. This drawing, in accordance with its extreme
age, shows the knotted cords that signify numbers. These num
bers have the usual primitive character of qualities, chiefly
masculine and feminine. All uneven numbers are masculine,
even numbers feminine.
643
Unfortunately I do not know whether this primitive con
ception influenced the formation of the much younger Tantric
mandala. But the parallels are so striking that the European
investigator has to ask himself: Which view influenced the
other? Did the Chinese develop from the Indian, or the Indian
from the Chinese? An Indian whom I asked answered: "Natu
rally the Chinese developed from the Indian." But he did not
know how old the Chinese conceptions are. The bases of the
I Ching go back to the third millennium B.C. My late friend
Richard Wilhelm, the eminent expert on classical Chinese
philosophy, was of the opinion that no direct connections could
be assumed. Nor, despite the fundamental similarity of the
symbolic ideas, does there need to be any direct influence, since
the ideas, as experience shows and as I think I have demon
strated, arise autochthonously again and again, independently
of one another, out of a psychic matrix that seems to be ubiqui
tous.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Figure 3
644
As a counterpart to the Lamaic mandala, I now reproduce
the Tibetan "World Wheel," which should be sharply distin
guished from the former, since it represents the world. In the
centre are the three principles: cock, snake, and pig, symboliz
ing lust, envy, and unconsciousness. The wheel has, near the
centre, six spokes, and twelve spokes round the edge. It is based
on a triadic system. The wheel is held by the god of death,
Yama. (Later we shall meet other "shield-holders": Figs. 34 and
47.) It is understandable that the sorrowful world of old age,
sickness, and death should be held in the claws of the deathdemon. The incomplete state of existence is, remarkably
enough, expressed by a triadic system, and the complete (spirit
ual) state by a tetradic system. The relation between the in
complete and the complete state therefore corresponds to the
"sesquitertian proportion" of 3 : 4. This relation is known in
Western alchemical tradition as the axiom of Maria. It also plays
a not inconsiderable role in dream symbolism.4
*
645
We shall now pass on to individual mandalas spontaneously
produced by patients in the course of an analysis of the uncon
scious. Unlike the mandalas so far discussed, these are not based
on any tradition or model, seeming to be free creations of
fantasy, but determined by certain archetypal ideas unknown to
their creators. For this reason the fundamental motifs are re
peated so often that marked similarities occur in drawings done
by the most diverse patients. The pictures come as a rule from
educated persons who were unacquainted with the ethnic paral
lels. The pictures differ widely, according to the stage of the
therapeutic process; but certain important stages correspond
to definite motifs. Without going into therapeutic details, I
would only like to say that a rearranging of the personality is
involved, a kind of new centring. That is why mandalas mostly
appear in connection with chaotic psychic states of disorienta
tion or panic. They then have the purpose of reducing the
confusion to order, though this is never the conscious intention
4 Cf. the preceding paper, par. 552.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
of the patient. At all events they express order, balance, and
wholeness. Patients themselves often emphasize the beneficial
or soothing effect of such pictures. Usually the mandalas ex
press religious, i.e., numinous, thoughts and ideas, or, in their
stead, philosophical ones. Most mandalas have an intuitive, irra
tional character and, through their symbolical content, exert a
retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess
a "magical" significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was
never consciously felt by the patient. In fact, it is from the effect
of their own pictures that patients discover what icons can
mean. Their pictures work not because they spring from the
patients' own fantasy but because they are impressed by the
fact that their subjective imagination produces motifs and
symbols of the most unexpected kind that conform to law and
express an idea or situation which their conscious mind can
grasp only with difficulty. Confronted with these pictures, many
patients suddenly realize for the first time the reality of the
collective unconscious as an autonomous entity. I will not
labour the point here; the strength of the impression and its
effect on the patient are obvious enough from some of the pic
tures.
6
64
I must preface the pictures that now follow with a few re
marks on the formal elements of mandala symbolism. These are
primarily:
1. Circular, spherical, or egg-shaped formation.
2. The circle is elaborated into a flower (rose, lotus) or a
wheel.
3. A centre expressed by a sun, star, or cross, usually with
four, eight, or twelve rays.
4. The circles, spheres, and cruciform figures are often repre
sented in rotation (swastika).
5. The circle is represented by a snake coiled about a centre,
either ring-shaped (uroboros) or spiral (Orphic egg).
6. Squaring of the circle, taking the form of a circle in a
square or vice versa.
7. Castle, city, and courtyard (temenos) motifs, quadratic or
circular.
8. Eye (pupil and iris).
9. Besides the tetradic figures (and multiples of four), there
are also triadic and pentadic ones, though these are much rarer.
361
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
They should be regarded as "disturbed" totality pictures, as we
shall see below.
Figure 4
This mandala was done by a woman patient in her middle
years, who first saw it in a dream. Here we see at once the dif
ference from the Eastern mandala. It is poor in form, poor in
ideas, but nevertheless expresses the individual attitude of the
patient far more clearly than the Eastern pictures, which have
been subjected to a collective and traditional configuration. Her
dream ran: "I was trying to decipher an embroidery pattern.
My sister knew how. I asked her if she had made an elaborate
hemstitched handkerchief. She said,"No, but I know how it was
done." Then I saw it with the threads drawn, but the work not
yet done. One must go around and around the sqiiare until near
the centre, then go in circles."
648
The spiral is painted in the typical colours red, green, yel
low, and blue. According to the patient, the square in the centre
represents a stone, its four facets showing the four basic colours.
The inner spiral represents the snake that, like Kundalini,
winds three and a half times 5 round the centre.
6 49
The dreamer herself had no notion of what was going on in
her, namely the beginning of a new orientation, nor would she
have understood it consciously. Also, the parallels from Eastern
symbolism were completely unknown to her, so that any in
fluence is out of the question. The symbolic picture came to her
spontaneously, when she had reached a certain point in her
development.
65°
It is, unfortunately, not possible for me to say exactly under
what circumstances each of these pictures arose. That would
lead us too far. The sole aim of this paper is to give a survey
of the formal parallels to the individual and collective mandala.
I regret also that for the same reason no single picture can be
interpreted circumstantially and in detail, as that would in
evitably require a comprehensive account of the analytical
situation of the patient. Wherever it is possible to shed light on
the origins of the picture by a passing hint, as in the present
case, I shall do so.
647
6 The motif of 3½ (the Apocalyptic number of days of affliction; cf. Rev. 11:9
and 11) refers to the alchemical dilemma "3 or 4?" or to the sesquitertian pro
portion (3 : 4). The sesquitertius is 3 + i/3.
362
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
651
As to the interpretation of the picture, it must be empha
sized that the snake, arranged in angles and then in circles
round the square, signifies the circumambulation of, and way
to, the centre. The snake, as a chthonic and at the same time
spiritual being, symbolizes the unconscious. The stone in the
centre, presumably a cube, is the quaternary form of the lapis
philosophorum. The four colours also point in this direction. 6
It is evident that the stone in this case signifies the new centre
of personality, the self, which is also symbolized by a vessel.
Figure 5
652
The painter was a middle-aged woman of schizoid disposi
tion. She had several times drawn mandalas spontaneously, be
cause they always had an ordering effect on her chaotic psychic
states. The picture shows a rose, the Western equivalent of the
lotus. In India the lotus-flower (padma) is interpreted by the
Tantrists as the womb. We know this symbol from the numer
ous pictures of the Buddha (and other Indian deities) in the
lotus-flower.7 It corresponds to the "Golden Flower" of Chinese
alchemy, the rose of the Rosicrucians, and the mystic rose in
Dante's Paradiso. Rose and lotus are usually arranged in groups
of four petals, indicating the squaring of the circle or the
united opposites. The significance of the rose as the maternal
womb was nothing strange to our Western mystics, for we read
in a prayer inspired by the Litany of Loreto:
O Rose-wreath, thy blossoming makes men weep for joy.
O rosy sun, thy burning makes men to love.
O son of the sun,
Rose-child,
Sun-beam.
Flower of the Cross, pure Womb that blossoms
Over all blooming and burning,
Sacred Rose,
Mary.
β There is a very interesting American Indian parallel to this mandala: a white
snake coiled round a centre shaped like a cross in four colours. Cf. Newcomb
and Reichard, Sandpaintings of the Navajo Shooting Chant, PI. XIII, pp. 13
and 78. The book contains a large number of interesting mandalas in colour.
7 The Egyptian Horus-child is likewise shown sitting in the lotus.
B63
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
e53
At the same time, the vessel motif is an expression of the
content, just as Shakti represents the actualization of Shiva. As
alchemy shows, the self is androgynous and consists of a mascu
line and a feminine principle. Conrad of Wiirzburg speaks of
Mary, the flower of the sea in which Christ lies hidden. And in
an old hymn we read:
O'er all the heavens a rose appears
And a bright dress of blossom wears.
Its light glows in the Three-in-One
For God himself has put it on.
Figure 6
The rose in the centre is depicted as a ruby, its outer ring
being conceived as a wheel or a wall with gates (so that nothing
can come out from inside or go in from outside). The mandala
was a spontaneous product from the analysis of a male patient.
It was based on a dream: The dreamer found himself with
three younger travelling companions in Liverpool. 8 It was
night, and raining. The air was full of smoke and soot. They
climbed up from the harbour to the "upper city." The dreamer
said: "It was terribly dark and disagreeable, and we could not
understand how anyone could stick it here. We talked about
this, and one of my companions said that, remarkably enough,
a friend of his had settled here, which astonished everybody.
During this conversation we reached a sort of public garden in
the middle of the city. The park was square, and in the centre
was a lake or large pool. A few street lamps just lit up the pitch
darkness, and I could see a little island in the pool. On it there
was a single tree, a red-flowering magnolia, which miraculously
stood in everlasting sunshine. I noticed that my companions
had not seen this miracle, whereas I was beginning to under
stand why the man had settled here."
655
The dreamer went on: "I tried to paint this dream. But as
so often happens, it came out rather different. The magnolia
turned into a sort of rose made of ruby-coloured glass. It shone
like a four-rayed star. The square represents the wall of the
park and at the same time a street leading round the park in a
square. From it there radiate eight main streets, and from each
654
8 Note the allusion in the name "Liver-pool." The liver is that which causes to
live, the seat of life. [Cf. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. igyf./iggf.]
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
of these eight side-streets, which meet in a shining red central
point, rather like the £toile in Paris. The acquaintance men
tioned in the dream lived in a house at the corner of one of
these stars." The mandala thus combines the classic motifs of
flower, star, circle, precinct (temenos), and plan of city divided
into quarters with citadel. "The whole thing seemed like a
window opening on to eternity," wrote the dreamer.
Figure 7
656
Flower motif with cross in the centre. The square, too, is
arranged like a flower. The four faces at the corners correspond
to the four cardinal points, which are often depicted as four
deities. Here they have a demonic character. This may be con
nected with the fact that the patient was born in the Dutch
East Indies, where she sucked up the peculiar local demonology
with the mother's milk of her native ayah. Her numerous draw
ings all had a distinctly Eastern character, and thereby helped
her to assimilate influences that at first could not be reconciled
with her Western mentality. 9
657
In the picture that followed, the demon faces were orna
mentally elaborated in eight directions. For the superficial ob
server the flowerlike character of the whole may disguise the
demonic element the mandala is meant to ward off. The patient
felt that the "demonic" effect came from the European in
fluence with its moralism and rationalism. Brought up in the
East Indies until her sixth year, she came later into a conven
tional European milieu, and this had a devastating effect on the
flowerlike quality of her Eastern spirit and caused a prolonged
psychic trauma. Under treatment her native world, long sub
merged, came up again in these drawings, bringing with it
psychic recovery.
Figure 8
658
The flowerlike
development has got stronger and is begin
ning to overgrow the "demonishness" of the faces.
Figure 9
659
A later stage is shown here. Minute care in the draughts
manship vies with richness of colour and form. From this we
8 [Cf. The Practice of Psychotherapy, 2nd edn., appendix, esp. par. 557. —E DITORS.]
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
can discern not only the extraordinary concentration of the
patient but the triumph of Eastern "flowerlikeness" over the
demon of Western intellectualistn, rationalism, and moralism.
At the same time the new centring of the personality becomes
visible.
Figure 10
In this painting, done by another young woman patient, we
see at the cardinal points four creatures: a bird, a sheep, a
snake, and a lion with a human face. Together with the four
colours in which the four regions are painted, they embody four
principles. The interior of the mandala is empty. Or rather, it
contains a "Nothing" that is expressed by a quaternity. This is
in accord with the overwhelming majority of individual mandalas: as a rule the centre contains the motif of the rotundum,
known to us from alchemy, or the four-fold emanation or the
squaring of the circle, or—more rarely—the figure of the patient
in a universal human sense, representing the Anthropos.10 We
find this motif, too, in alchemy. The four animals remind us
of the cherubim in Ezekiel's vision, and also of the four sym
bols of the evangelists and the four sons of Horus, which are
sometimes depicted in the same way, three with animal heads
and one with a human head. Animals generally signify the
instinctive forces of the unconscious, which are brought into
unity within the mandala. This integration of the instincts is
a prerequisite for individuation.
Figure n
Painting by an older patient. Here the flower is seen not
in the basic pattern of the mandala, but in elevation. The circu
lar form has been preserved inside the square, so that despite
its different execution this picture can still be regarded as a
mandala. The plant stands for growth and development, like
the green shoot in the diaphragm chakra of the kundalini yoga
system. The shoot symbolizes Shiva and represents the centre
and the male, whereas the calyx represents the female, the place
of germination and birth. 11 Thus the Buddha sitting in the
lotus is shown as the germinating god. It is the god in his rising,
10 [Cf. "Psychology and Religion," pars. i36f., 156c.]
11 [Cf. "The Philosophical Tree," par. 336 and fig. 27.—EDITORS.]
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
the same symbol as Ra the falcon, or the phoenix rising from
the nest, or Mithras in the tree-top, or the Horus-child in the
lotus. They are all symbolizations of the status nascendi in the
seeding-place of the matrix. In medieval hymns Mary too is
praised as the cup of the flower in which Christ, coming down
as a bird, makes his nest. Psychologically Christ means unity,
which clothes itself in the corpus mysticum of the Church or in
the body .of the Mother of God ("mystic rose"), surrounded as
with flower-petals, and thus reveals itself in reality. Christ as an
image is a symbol of the self. 12 Just as the plant stands for
growth, so the flower depicts the unfolding from a centre.
Figure 12
66a
Here the four rays emanating from the centre spread across
the whole picture. This gives the centre a dynamic character.
The structure of the flower is a multiple of four. The picture
is typical of the marked personality of the patient, who had
some artistic talent. (She also painted Fig. 5.) Besides that she
had a strong feeling for Christian mysticism, which played a
great role in her life. It was important for her to experience the
archetypal background of Christian symbolism.
Figure /3
66 S
Photograph of a rug woven by a middle-aged woman, Penelope-like, at a time of great inner and outer distress. She was a
doctor and she wove this magic circle round herself, working at
it every day for months, as a counterbalance to the difficulties of
her life. She was not my patient and could not have been in
fluenced by me. The rug contains an eight-petalled flower. A
special feature of the rug is that it has a real "above and below."
Above is light; below, relative darkness. In it, there is a creature
like a beetle, representing an unconscious content, and com
parable with the sun in the form of Khepera. Occasionally the
"above and below" are outside the protective circle, instead of
inside. In that case the mandala affords protection against ex
treme opposites; that is, the sharpness of the conflict is not yet
realized or else is felt as intolerable. The protective circle then
guards against possible disruption due to the tension of oppo
sites.
I 2 Cf. Aion (Part II of this volume), ch. 5.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Figure 14
664
An Indian picture of Shiva-bindu, the unextended point. It
shows the divine power before the creation: the opposites are
still united. The god rests in the point. Hence the snake sig
nifies extension, the mother of Becoming, the creation of the
w r orld of forms. In India this point is also called Hiranyagarbha,
'golden germ' or 'golden egg.' We read in the Sanatsugatiya:
"That pure great light which is radiant, that great glory which
the gods worship, which makes the sun shine forth, that divine,
eternal Being is perceived by the faithful." 13
Figure 15
66 5
This picture, also by a middle-aged woman patient, shows
the squaring of the circle. The plants again denote germina
tion and growth. In the centre is 2 sun, As the snake-and-tree
motif show r s, we have here a conception of Paradise. A parallel
is the Gnostic conception of Edem with the four rivers of
Paradise in the Naassene gnosis. For the functional significance
of the snake in relation to the mandala, see the preceding paper
(comments on pictures 3, 4, and 5).
Figure 16
666
This picture was painted by a neurotic young woman. The
snake is somewhat unusual in that it lies in the centre itself, its
head coinciding with this. Usually it is outside the inner circle,
or at least coiled round the central point. One suspects (rightly,
as it turned out) that the inner darkness does not conceal the
longed-for unity, the self, but rather the chthonic, feminine
nature of the patient. In a later picture the mandala bursts and
the snake comes out.
Figure
66 7
77
The picture was done by a young woman. This mandala is
"legitimate" in so far as the snake is coiled round the fourrayed middle point. It is trying to get out: it is the awakening
of Kundalini 1 meaning that the patient's chthonic nature is
becoming active. This is also indicated by the arrows pointing
13 Sacred Books of the East, VIII, p. 186, modified.
368
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
outwards. In practice it means becoming conscious of one's
instinctual nature. The snake in ancient times personified the
spinal ganglia and the spinal cord. Arrows pointing outwards
may in other cases mean the opposite: protection of the inside
from danger.
Figure 18
668
Drawn by an older patient. Unlike the previous picture, this
one is "introverted." The snake is coiled round the four-rayed
centre and has laid its head on the white, central point (Shivabindu), so that it looks as if it were wearing a halo. There seems
to be a kind of incubation of the middle point—the motif of the
snake guarding the treasure. The centre is often characterized
as the "treasure hard to attain." 14
Figure 19
669
Done by a middle-aged woman. The concentric circles ex
press concentration. This is further emphasized by the fishes
circumnavigating the centre. The number 4 has the meaning of
total concentration. The movement to the left presumably indi
cates movement towards the unconscious, i.e., immersion in it.
Figure 20
®7°
This is a parallel to Figure 1 9 : sketch of a fish-motif which
I saw on the ceiling of the Maharajah's pavilion in Benares.
Figure 21
6 7'
A fish instead of a snake. Fish and snake are simultaneously
attributes of both Christ and the devil. The fish is making a
whirlpool in the sea of the unconscious, and in its midst the
precious pearl is being formed. A Rig-Veda hymn says:
Darkness there was, concealed in darkness,
A Iightless ocean lost in night.
Then the One, that was hidden in the shell,
Was born through the power of fiery torment.
From it arose in the beginning love,
Which is the germ and the seed of knowledge.16
i*Cf, Symbols of Transformation, Part II, ch. 7.
is Rig-Veda, X, 129, from Deussen trans., I, p. 123.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
6
72
As a rule the snake personifies the unconscious, whereas the
fish usually represents one of its contents. These subtle distinc
tions must be borne in mind when interpreting a mandala, be
cause the two symbols very probably correspond to two different
stages of development, the snake representing a more primitive
and more instinctual state than the fish, which in history as well
was endowed with higher authority than the snake (cf. the
Ichthys-symbol).
Figure 22
673
In this picture by a young woman the fish has produced a
differentiated centre by circumnavigation, and in it a mother
and child stand before a stylized Tree of Life or of Knowledge.
Here the fish has a dragonlike nature; it is a monster, a sort of
Leviathan, which, as the texts from Ras Shamra show, was
originally a snake. 16 Once more the movement is to the left.
Figure 23
6 74
The golden ball corresponds to the golden germ (Hiranyagarbha). It is rotating, and the Kundalini winding round it
has doubled. This indicates conscious realization, since a con
tent rising out of the unconscious splits at a certain moment into
two halves, a conscious and an unconscious one. The doubling
is not made by the conscious mind, but appears spontaneously
in the products of the unconscious. The rightwards rotation, ex
pressed by the wings (swastika-motif), likewise indicates con
scious realization. The stars show that the centre has a cosmic
structure. It has four rays, and thus behaves like a heavenly
body. The Shatapatha-Brahmana says:
Then he looks up to the sun, for that is the final goal, that the
safe resort. To that final goal, to that resort he goes; for this reason
he looks up to the sun.
He looks up, saying, "Self-existent art thou, the best ray of
light!" The sun is indeed the best ray of light, and therefore he says,
"Self-existent art thou, the best ray of light!" "Light-bestowing art
thou: give me light (varkas)l" "So say I," said Yajnavalkya, "and
for this indeed the Brahmin should strive, if he would be brahrnavarkasin, illumined by brahma."
He then turns from left to right, saying, "I move along the course
18 [Cf. Aion, pars. ι8ιί.—EDITORS.]
B70
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
of the sun." Having reached that final goal, that safe resort, he now
moves along the course of yonder sun.17
675
676
This sun has seven rays. A commentator remarks that four of
them point to the four quarters; one points upwards, another
downwards, but the seventh and "best" points inwards. It is at
the same time the sun's disc, named Hiranyagarbha. This, ac
cording to Ramanuja's commentary on the Vedanta Sutras,18 is
the highest self, the "collective aggregate of all individual
souls." It is the body of the highest Brahma and represents the
collective psyche. For the idea of the self as compounded of
many, compare Origen's "Each of us is not one, but many" and
"All are righteous, but one receiveth the crown." 19
The patient was a woman of sixty, artistically gifted. The
individuation process, long blocked but released by the treat
ment, stimulated her creative activity (Fig. 21 derives from the
same source) and gave rise to a series of happily coloured pic
tures which eloquently express the intensity of her experience.
Figure 24
®77
Done by the same patient. She herself is shown practising
contemplation or concentration on the centre: she has taken the
place of the fish and the snakes. An ideal image of herself is laid
round the precious egg. The legs are flexible, like a nixie's.
The psychology of such a picture reappears in ecclesiastical
tradition. The Shiva-Shakti of the East is known in the West as
the "man encompassed by a woman," Christ and his bride the
Church. Compare the Maitrayana-Brahmana Upanishad:
He [the Self] is also he who warms, the Sun, hidden by the
thousand-eyed golden egg, as one fire by another. He is to be thought
after, he is to be sought after. Having said farewell to all living
things, having gone to the forest, and having renounced all sensuous
objects, let a man perceive the Self from his own body.20
678
Here too the radiation from the centre spreads out beyond
the protective circle into the distance. This expresses the idea
of the far-reaching effect of the introverted state of conscious
ly I1 Q1 g, igff. Trans, from Sacred Books of the East, XII, pp. 271!, modified.
Trans, from Sacred Books of the East, XLVIII, p. 578.
1 ^ln libros Regnorum homiliae, I, 4 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, cols. 998, 999).
20 VI, 8. Trans, from Sacred Books of the East, XV, p. 311.
1S
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
ness. It could also be described as an unconscious connection
with the world.
Figure 25
679
This picture was done by another middle-aged patient. It
shows various phases of the individuation process. Down below
she is caught in a chthonic tangle o£ roots (the muladhara of
kundalini yoga). In the middle she studies a book, cultivating
her mind and augmenting her knowledge and consciousness. At
the top, reborn, she receives illumination in the form of a
heavenly sphere that widens and frees the personality, its Tound
shape again representing the mandala in its "Kingdom of God"
aspect, whereas the lower, wheel-shaped mandala is chthonic.
There is a confrontation of the natural and spiritual totalities.
The mandala is unusual on account of its six rays, six mountain
peaks, six birds, three human figures. In addition, it is located
between a distinct Above and Below, also repeated in the
mandala itself. The upper, bright sphere is in the act of descend
ing into the hexad or triad and has already passed the rim of
the wheel. According to old tradition the number 6 means
creation and evolution, since it is a coniunctio of 2 and 3 (even
and odd
female and male). Philo Judaeus therefore calls
the senarius (6) the "number most suited to generation." 21 The
number 3, he says, denotes the surface or flatness, whereas 4
means height or depth. The quaternarius "shows the nature of
solids," whereas the three first numbers characterize or produce
incorporeal intelligences. The number 4 appears as a three-sided
pyramid.22 The hexad shows that the mandala consists of two
triads, and the upper one is making itself into a quaternity, the
state of "equability and justice," as Philo says. Down below lurk
unintegrated dark clouds. This picture demonstrates the not
uncommon fact that the personality needs to be extended both
upwards and downwards.
Figures 26 and
680
27
These mandalas are in part atypical. Both were done by the
same young woman. In the centre, as in the previous mandala,
is a female figure, as if enclosed in a glass sphere or transparent
21 De
opificio mundi. Cf. Colson trans., I, p. 13.
22
Ibid., p. 79.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
bubble. It looks almost as if an homunculus were in the mak
ing. In addition to the usual four or eight rays, both mandalas
show a pentadic element. There is thus a dilemma between four
and five. Five is the number assigned to the "natural" man, in
so far as he consists of a trunk with five appendages. Four, on
the other hand, signifies a conscious totality. It describes the
ideal, "spiritual" man and formulates him as a totality in con
trast to the pentad, which describes the corporeal man. It is
significant that the swastika symbolizes the "ideal" man,23
whereas the five-pointed star symbolizes the material and bodily
man.24 The dilemma of four and five corresponds to the con
flict between "culture" and "nature." That was the problem of
the patient. In Figure 26 the dilemma is indicated by the four
groups of stars: two of them contain four stars and two of them
five stars. On the rims of both mandalas we see the "fire of
desire." In Figure 27 the rim is made of something that looks
like lighted tissue. In characteristic contrast to the "shining"
mandala, both these (especially the second one) are "burning."
It is flaming desire, comparable to the longing of the homuncu
lus in the retort (Faust, Part II), which was finally shattered
against the throne of Galatea. The fire represents an erotic
demand but at the same time an amor fati that burns in the
innermost self, trying to shape the patient's fate and thus help
the self into reality. Like the homunculus in Faust, the figure
shut up in the vessel wants to "become."
The patient was herself aware of the conflict, for she told
me she had no peace after painting the second picture. She had
reached the afternoon of her life, and was in her thirty-fifth
year. She was in doubt as to whether she ought to have another
child. She decided for a child, but fate did not let her, because
the development of her personality was evidently pursuing a
different goal, not a biological but a cultural one. The conflict
was resolved in the interests of the latter.
28 It depends very much on whether the swastika revolves to the right or to the
left. In Tibet, the one that revolves to the left is supposed to symbolize the Βδη
religion of black magic as opposed to Buddhism.
The symbol of the star is favoured both by Russia and America. The one is
red, the other white. For the significance of these colours see Psychology and
Alchemy, index, s.v. "colours."
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Figure 28
682
Picture by a middle-aged man. In the centre is a star. The
blue sky contains golden clouds. At the four cardinal points we
see human figures: at the top, an old man in the attitude of
contemplation; at the bottom, Loki or Hephaestus with red,
flaming hair, holding in his hands a temple. To the right and
left are a light and a dark female figure. Together they indicate
four aspects of the personality, or four archetypal figures be
longing, as it were, to the periphery of the self. The two female
figures can be recognized without difficulty as the two aspects
of the anima. The old man corresponds to the archetype of
meaning, or of the spirit, and the dark chthonic figure to the
opposite of the Wise Old Man, namely the magical (and some
times destructive) Luciferian element. In alchemy it is Hermes
Trismegistus versus Mercurius, the evasive "trickster." 25 The
circle enclosing the sky contains structures or organisms that
look like protozoa. The sixteen globes painted in four colours
just outside this circle derived originally from an eye motif and
therefore stand for the observing and discriminating conscious
ness. Similarly, the ornaments in the next circle, all opening in
wards, are rather like vessels pouring out their content towards
the centre.26 On the other hand the ornaments along the rim
open outwards, as if to receive something from outside. That is,
in the individuation process what were originally projections
stream back "inside" and are integrated into the personality
again. Here, in contrast to Figure 25, "Above" and "Below,"
male and female, are integrated, as in the alchemical hermaph
rodite.
Figure 29
683
Once again the centre is symbolized by a star. This very
common image is consistent with the previous pictures, where
the sun represents the centre. The sun, too, is a star, a radiant
cell in the ocean of the sky. The picture shows the self appear25 Cf. the eighth and the ninth papers in this volume; and "The Spirit Mer
curius."
26 There is a similar conception in alchemy, in the Ripley Scrowle and its variants
(Psychology and Alchemy, fig. 257). There it is the planetary gods who are
pouring their qualities into the bath of rebinh.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
ing as a star out of chaos. The four-rayed structure is empha
sized by the use of four colours. This picture is significant in
that it sets the structure of the self as a principle of order against
chaos. 27 It was painted by the same man who did Figure 28.
Figure β ο
684
This mandala, by an older woman patient, is again split into
Above and Below: heaven above, the sea below, as indicated by
the golden waves on a green ground. Four wings revolve left
wards about the centre, which is marked only by an orange-red
spot. Here too the opposites are integrated and are presumably
the cause of the centre's rotation.
Figure 31
685
An atypical mandala, based on a dyad. A golden moon and
a silver moon form the upper and lower edges. The inside is
blue sky above and something like a black crenellated wall
below. On it there sits a peacock, fanning out its tail, and to the
left there is an egg, presumably the peacock's. In view of the
important role which the peacock and the peacock's egg to
gether play in alchemy and also in Gnosticism, we may expect
the miracle of the Cauda pavonis, the appearance of "all
Colours" (Bohme), the unfolding and realization of wholeness,
once the dark dividing wall has broken down. (See Fig. 32.) The
patient thought the egg might split and produce something new,
maybe a snake. In alchemy the peacock is synonymous with the
Phoenix. A variant of the Phoenix legend relates that the
Semenda Bird consumes itself, a worm forms from the ashes,
and from the worm the bird rises anew.
Figure 52
686
This picture is reproduced from the Codex Alchemicus
Rhenoviensis, Central Library, Zurich. Here the peacock rep
resents the Phoenix rising newborn from the fire. There is a
similar picture in a manuscript in the British Museum, only
there the peacock is enclosed in a flask, the vas hermeticum,
like the homunculus.28 The peacock is an old emblem of re
birth and resurrection, quite frequently found on Christian
27 q : "Xjie Psychology of Eastern Meditation," par. 94a.
28 Cf. John Read, Prelude to Chemistry, frontispiece.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
sarcophagi. In the vessel standing beside the peacock the colours
of the cauda pavonis appear, as a sign that the transformation
process is nearing its goal. In the alchemical process the serpens
mercurialis, the dragon, is changed into the eagle, the peacock,
the goose of Hermes, or the Phoenix.29
Figure 35
687
This picture was done by a seven-year-old boy, offspring of
a problem marriage. He had done a whole series of these draw
ings of circles and hung them up round his bed. He called them
his "loves" and would not go to sleep without them. This shows
that the "magical" pictures still functioned for him in their
original sense, as a protective magic circle.
Figure 34
688
An eleven-year-old girl, whose parents were divorced, had, at
a time of great difficulties and upsets, drawn a number of pic
tures which clearly reveal a mandala structure. Here too they
were magic circles intended to stop the difficulties and adversi
ties of the outside world from entering into the inner psychic
space. They represent a kind of self-protection.
68 9
As on the kilkhor, the Tibetan World Wheel (Fig. 3), you
can see at either side of this picture something that looks like
horns, which as we know belong to the devil or to one of his
theriomorphic symbols. The slanting eye-slits underneath them,
and the two strokes for nose and mouth, are also the devil's.
This amounts to saying: Behind the mandala lurks the devil.
Either the "demons" are covered up by the magically powerful
picture, and thereby eliminated—which would be the purpose
of the mandala—or, as in the case of the Tibetan World Wheel,
the world is caught in the claws of the demon of death. In this
picture the devils merely peek out over the edge. I have seen
what this means from another case; An artistically gifted patient
produced a typical tetradic mandala and stuck it on a sheet of
thick paper. On the back there was a circle to match, filled with
drawings of sexual perversions. This shadow aspect of the
mandala represented the disorderly, disruptive tendencies, the
"chaos" that hides behind the self and bursts out in a dan29 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars, 334 and 404.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
gerous way as soon as the individuation process comes to a
standstill, or when the self is not realized and so remains un
conscious. This piece of psychology was expressed by the al
chemists in their Mercurius duplex, who on the one hand is
Hermes the mystagogue and psychopomp, and on the other hand
is the poisonous dragon, the evil spirit and "trickster."
Figure 35
690
Drawing by the same girl. Round the sun is a circle with
eyes, and round this an uroboros. The motif of polyophthalmia
frequently occurs in individual mandalas. (See Picture 17 and
Fig. 5 in the preceding paper.) In the Maitrayana-Brahmana
Upanishad VI, 8 the egg (Hiranyagarbha) is described as "thou
sand-eyed." The eyes in the mandala no doubt signify the ob
serving consciousness, but it must also be borne in mind that
the texts as well as the pictures both attribute the eyes to a
mythic figure, e.g., an Anthropos, who does the seeing. This
seems to me to point to the fascination which, through a kind
of magical stare, attracts the attention of the conscious mind.
(Cf. Figs. 38 and 39.)
Figure )6
69 1
Painting of a medieval city with walls and moats, streets and
churches, arranged quadratically. The inner city is again sur
rounded by walls and moats, like the Imperial City in Peking.
The buildings all open inwards, towards the centre, repre
sented by a castle with a golden roof. It too is surrounded by a
moat. The ground round the castle is laid with black and white
tiles, representing the united opposites. This mandala was done
by a midd'.e-aged man (cf. Figs. 6, 28, 29). A picture like this
is not unknown in Christian symbolism. The Heavenly Jeru
salem of Revelation is known to everybody. Coming to the
Indian world of ideas, we find the city of Brahma on the world
mountain, Meru. We read in the Golden Flower: "The Book
of the Yellow Castle says: 'In the square inch field of the
square foot house, life can be regulated.' The square foot
house is the face. The square inch field in the face: what
could that be other than the heavenly heart? In the middle of
the square inch dwells the splendour. In the purple hall of
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE
UNCONSCIOUS
the city of jade dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and Life."30
Figure 57
692
Painted by the same patient who did Figures 11 and 30. Here
the "seeding-place" is depicted as a child enclosed in a revolv
ing sphere. The four "wings" are painted in the four basic
colours. The child corresponds to Hiranyagarbha and to the
homunculus of the alchemists. The mythologem of the "Divine
Child" is based on ideas of this sort.31
Figure 38
693
Mandala in rotation, by the same patient, who did Figures
21 and 23. A notable feature is the quaternary structure of the
golden wings in combination with the triad of three dogs run
ning round the centre. They have their backs to it, indicating
that for them the centre is in the unconscious. The mandala
contains—another unusual feature—a triadic motif turning to
the left, while the wings turn to the right. This is not accidental.
The dogs represent consciousness "scenting" or "intuiting" the
unconscious; the wings show the movement of the unconscious
towards consciousness, as corresponded to the patient's situation
at the time. It is as if the dogs were fascinated by the centre
although they cannot see it. They seem to represent the fascina
tion felt by the conscious mind. The picture embodies the
above-mentioned sesquitertian proportion (3 : 4).
Figure 39
694
The same motif as before, but represented by hares. From
a Gothic window in the cathedral at Paderborn. There is no
recognizable centre though the rotation presupposes one.
Figure 40
695
Picture by a young woman patient. It too exhibits the
sesquitertian proportion and hence the dilemma with which
Plato's Timaeus begins, and which as I said plays a considerable
role in alchemy, as the axiom of Maria.32
30 The Secret of the Golden Flower (1962). p. 22.
31 Cf. the sixth and seventh papers in this volume.
32 Cf. "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," par. 184.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
Figure 41
696
This picture was done by a young woman patient with a
schizoid disposition. The pathological element is revealed in the
"breaking lines" that split up the centre. The sharp, pointed
forms o£ these breaking lines indicate evil, hurtful, and de
structive impulses which might hinder the desired synthesis of
personality. But it seems as if the regular structure of the sur
rounding mandala might be able to restrain the dangerous
tendencies to dissociation. And this proved to be the case in
the further course of the treatment and subsequent develop
ment of the patient.
Figure 42
697
A neurotically disturbed mandala. It was drawn by a young,
unmarried woman patient at a time that Avas full of conflict:
she was in a dilemma between two men. The outer rim shows
four different colours. The centre is doubled in a curious way:
fire breaks out from behind the blue star in the black field,
while to the right a sun appears, with blood vessels running
through it. The five-pointed star suggests a pentagram symboliz
ing man, the arms, legs, and head all having the same value. As
I have said, it signifies the purely instinctual, chthonic, uncon
scious man. (Cf. Figs. 26 and 27.) The colour of the star is blue—
of a cool nature, therefore. But the nascent sun is yellow and
red—a warm colour. The sun itself (looking rather like the
yolk of an incubated egg) usually denotes consciousness, illumi
nation, understanding. Hence we could say of this mandala: a
light is gradually dawning on the patient, she is waking out of
her formerly unconscious state, which corresponded to a purely
biological and rational existence. (Rationalism is no guarantee
of higher consciousness, but merely of a one-sided one!) The
new state is characterized by red (feeling) and yellow or gold
(intuition). There is thus a shifting of the centre of personality
into the warmer region of heart and feeling, while the inclusion
of intuition suggests a groping, irrational apprehension of
wholeness.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
Figure 43
698
This picture was done by a middle-aged woman who, with
out being neurotic, was struggling for spiritual development
and used for this purpose the method of active imagination.
These efforts induced her to make a drawing of the birth of a
new insight or conscious awareness (eye) from the depths of the
unconscious (sea). Here the eye signifies the self.
Figure 44
699
Drawing of motif from a Roman mosaic on the floor of a
house in Moknine, Tunis, which I photographed. It represents
an apotropaism against the evil eye.
Figure 45
7°°
Mandala from the Navaho Indians, who with great toil
prepare such mandalas from coloured sand for curative pur
poses. It is part of the Mountain Chant Rite performed for the
sick. Around the centre there runs, in a wide arc, the body of
the Rainbow Goddess. A square head denotes a female deity, a
round one a male deity. The arrangement of the four pairs of
deities on the arms of the cross suggests a swastika wheeling to
the right. The four male deities who surround the swastika are
making the same movement.
Figure 46
7 01
Another sand-painting by the Navahos, from the Male
Shooting Chant. The four horned heads are painted in the four
colours that correspond to the four directions. 33
Figure 47
702
Here, for comparison, is a painting of the Egyptian Sky
Mother, bending, like the Rainbow Goddess, over the "Land"
with its round horizon. Behind the mandala stands—presum
ably—the Air God, like the demon in Figures 3 and 34. Under
neath, the arms of the ka, raised in adoration and decked with
33 I am indebted to Mrs. Margaret Schevill for both these pictures. Figure 45 is
a variant of the sand-painting reproduced in Psychology and Alchemy, fig. 110.
CONCERNING MANDALA SYMBOLISM
the eye motif, hold the mandala, which probably signifies the
wholeness of the "Two Lands." 31
Figure 48
703
7°4
This picture, from a manuscript of Hildegard of Bingen,
shows the earth surrounded by the ocean, realm of air, and
starry heaven. The actual globe of the earth in the centre is
divided into four.35
Bohme has a mandala in his book XL Questions concern
ing the Soule (see Fig. 1 of preceding paper). The periphery
contains a bright and a dark hemisphere turning their backs to
one another. They represent un-united opposites, which pre
sumably should be bound together by the heart standing be
tween them. This drawing is most unusual, but aptly expresses
the insoluble moral conflict underlying the Christian view of
the world. "The Soul," Bohme says, "is an Eye in the Eternal
Abyss, a similitude of Eternity, a perfect Figure and Image of
the first Principle, and resembles God the Father in his Person,
as to the eternal Nature. The Essence and Substance of it,
merely as to what it is purely in itself, is first the wheel of
Nature, with the first four Forms." In the same treatise Bohme
says: "The substance and Image of the soul may be resembled
to the Earth, having a fair flower growing out of it . . ." "The
Soul is a fiery Eye . . . from the eternal Centre of Nature
. . . a similitude of the First Principle." 30 As an eye, the soul
"receives the Light, as the Moon does the glance of the Sun
. . . for the life of the soul has its original in the Fire." 37
Figures 49 and 50
I05
Figure 49 is especially interesting because it shows us very
clearly in what relationship the picture stands to the painter.
The patient (the same as did Fig. 42) has a shadow problem.
The female figure in the picture represents her dark, chthonic
side. She is standing in front of a wheel with four spokes, the
two together forming an eight-rayed mandala. From her head
The drawing was sent to me from the British Museum, London. The original
painting appears to be in New York.
35 Lucca, Bibliotheca governativa, Cod. 1942, fol. 37'.
36 A Summary Appendix of the Soul, p . 117.
37 Ibid.,
p. 118.
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
spring four snakes,38 expressing the tetradic nature of conscious
ness, but—in accordance with the demonic character of the pic
ture—they do this in an evil and nefarious way, since they
represent evil and destructive thoughts. The entire figure is
wrapped in flames, emitting a dazzling light. She is like a fiery
demon, a salamander, the medieval conception of a fire sprite.
Fire expresses an intense transformation process. Hence the
prima materia in alchemy was symbolized by the salamander in
the fire, as the next picture shows.39 The spear- or arrow-head
expresses "direction": it is pointing upwards from the middle
of the head. Everything that the fire consumes rises up to the
seat of the gods. The dragon glowing in the fire becomes volatil
ized; illumination comes through the fiery torment. Figure 4 9
tells us something about the background of the transformation
process. It depicts a state of suffering, reminiscent on the one
hand of crucifixion and on the other of Ixion bound to the
wheel. From this it is evident that individuation, or becoming
whole, is neither a summum bonum nor a summum desider
atum, but the painful experience of the union of opposites.
That is the real meaning of the cross in the circle, and that is
why the cross has an apotropaic effect, because, pointed at evil,
it shows evil that it is already included and has therefore lost
its destructive power.
Figure
7°6
5/
This picture was done by a sixty-year-old woman patient
with a similar problem: A fiery demon mounts through the
night towards a star. There he passes over from a chaotic into
an ordered and fixed state. The star stands for the transcendent
totality, the demon for the animus, who, like the anima, is the
connecting link between conscious and unconscious. The pic
ture recalls the antique symbolism found, for instance, in
Plutarch: 40 The soul is only partly in the body, the other part
is outside it and soars above man like a star symbolizing his
"genius." The same conception can be found among the al
chemists.
38 Cf. the four snakes in the chthonic, shadow-half of Picture 9 in the preceding
paper.
38 Figure X from Lambspringk's Symbols in the Musaeum hermeticum (Waite
trans., I, p. 295).
40 De genio Socratis, cap. XXII.
382
CONCERNING MANDALA. SYMBOLISM
Figure
707
52
Picture by the same patient as before, showing flames with
a soul rising up from them, as if swimming. The motif is re
peated in Figure 53. Exactly the same thing—and with the same
meaning—can be found in the Codex Rhenoviensis (fifteenth
century), Zurich (Fig. 54). The souls of the calcined prima
materia escape as vapours, in the form of human figures looking
like children (homunculi). In the fire is the dragon, the chthonic
form of the anima mundi, which is being transmuted.
Figures 53 and 54
7° 8
Here I must remark that not only did the patient have no
knowledge of alchemy but that I myself knew nothing at that
time of the alchemical picture material. The resemblance be
tween these two pictures, striking as it is, is nothing extra
ordinary, since the great problem and concern of philosophical
alchemy was the same as underlies the psychology of the un
conscious, namely individuation, the integration of the self.
Similar causes (other things being equal) have similar effects,
and similar psychological situations make use of the same sym
bols, which on their side rest on archetypal foundations, as I
have shown in the case of alchemy.
Conclusion
7°9
I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader some idea of
mandala symbolism with the help of these pictures. Naturally
my exposition aims at nothing more than a superficial survey of
the empirical material on which comparative research is based.
I have indicated a few parallels that may point the way to
further historical and ethnic comparisons, but have refrained
from a more complete and more thorough exposition because
it would have taken me too far.
P0
I need say only a few words about the functional significance
of the mandala, as I have discussed this theme several times
before. Moreover, if we have a little feeling in our fingertips
we can guess from these pictures, painted with the greatest devo
tion but with unskilful hands, what is the deeper meaning that
the patients tried to put into them and express through them.
They are yantras in the Indian sense, instruments of meditation,
THE ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
711
712
concentration, and self-immersion, for the purpose of realizing
inner experience, as I have explained in the commentary to the
Golden Flower. At the same time they serve to produce an
inner order—which is why, when they appear in a series, they
often follow chaotic, disordered states marked by conflict and
anxiety. They express the idea of a safe refuge, of inner rec
onciliation and wholeness.
I could produce many more pictures from all parts of the
world, and one would be astonished to see how these symbols
are governed by the same fundamental laws that can be ob
served in individual mandalas. In view of the fact that all the
mandalas shown here were new and uninfluenced products, we
are driven to the conclusion that there must be a transconscious
disposition in every individual which is able to produce the
same or very similar symbols at all times and in all places. Since
this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of the
individual I have called it the collective unconscious, and, as
the bases of its symbolical products, I postulate the existence of
primordial images, the archetypes. I need hardly add that the
identity of unconscious individual contents with their ethnic
parallels is expressed not merely in their form but in their
meaning.
Knowledge of the common origin of these unconsciously
preformed symbols has been totally lost to us. In order to re
cover it, we have to read old texts and investigate old cultures,
so as to gain an understanding of the things our patients bring
us today in explanation of their psychic development. And
when we penetrate a little more deeply below the surface of the
psyche, we come upon historical layers which are not just dead
dust, but alive and continuously active in everyone—maybe to a
degree that we cannot imagine in the present state of our knowl
edge.
APPENDIX
MANDALAS 1
The Sanskrit word mandala means "circle" in the ordinary
sense of the word. In the sphere of religious practices and in
psychology it denotes circular images, which are drawn, painted,
modelled, or danced. Plastic structures of this kind are to be
found, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, and as dance figures
these circular patterns occur also in Dervish monasteries. As
psychological phenomena they appear spontaneously in dreams,
in certain states of conflict, and in cases of schizophrenia. Very
frequently they contain a quaternity or a multiple of four, in
the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon, etc. In alchemy
we encounter this motif in the form of quadratura circuit.
714
In Tibetan Buddhism the figure has the significance of a
ritual instrument (yantra), whose purpose is to assist meditation
and concentration. Its meaning in alchemy is somewhat similar,
inasmuch as it represents the synthesis of the four elements
which are forever tending to fall apart. Its spontaneous occur
rence in modern individuals enables psychological research to
make a closer investigation into its functional meaning. As a
rule a mandala occurs in conditions of psychic dissociation or
disorientation, for instance in the case of children between the
ages of eight and eleven whose parents are about to be divorced,
or in adults who, as the result of a neurosis and its treatment,
are confronted with the problem of opposites in human nature
and are consequently disoriented; or again in schizophrenics
713
1
[Written especially for Du: Schweizerische Monatsschrift (Zurich), XV:4 (April
>6» ai. and subscribed "January 1955." The issue was devoted to the Eranos
conferences at Ascona, Switzerland, and the work of C. G. Jung. (An anonymous
translation into English accompanying the article has been consulted.) With Dr.
Jung's article also were several examples of mandalas, including the frontispiece
of this volume and fig. 1, p. 297. While this brief article duplicates some material
given elsewhere in this volume, it is presented here as a concise popular statement
on the subject.—EDITORS.]
J955)>
APPENDIX
whose view of the world has become confused, owing to the in
vasion of incomprehensible contents from the unconscious. In
such cases it is easy to see how the severe pattern imposed by a
circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and con
fusion of the psychic state—namely, through the construction of
a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric
arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradic
tory and irreconcilable elements. This is evidently an attempt
at self-healing on the part of Nature, which does not spring from
conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse. Here, as
comparative research has shown, a fundamental schema is made
use of, an archetype which, so to speak, occurs everywhere and
by no means owes its individual existence to tradition, any more
than the instincts would need to be transmitted in that way. In
stincts are given in the case of every newborn individual and
belong to the inalienable stock of those qualities w r hich charac
terize a species. What psychology designates as archetype is really
a particular, frequently occurring, formal aspect of instinct, and
is just as much an a priori factor as the latter. Therefore, despite
external differences, we find a fundamental conformity in mandalas regardless of their origin in time and space.
7»5
The "squaring of the circle" is one of the many archetypal
motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies.
But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most im
portant of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it
could even be called the archetype of wholeness. Because of this
significance, the "quaternity of the One" is the schema for all
images of God, as depicted in the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and
Enoch, and as the representation of Horus with his four sons
also shows. The latter suggests an interesting diEerentiation, in
asmuch as there are occasionally representations in which three
of the sons have animals' heads and only one a human head, in
keeping with the Old Testament visions as well as with the em
blems of the seraphim which were transferred to the evangelists,
and—last but not least—with the nature of the Gospels them
selves: three of which are synoptic and one "Gnostic." Here I
must add that, ever since the opening of Plato's Timaeus ("One,
two, three . . . but where, my dear Socrates, is the fourth?")
and right up to the Cabiri scene in Faust, the motif of four as
three and one was the ever-recurring preoccupation of alchemy.
APPENDIX
7' 6
The profound significance of the quaternity with its singular
process of differentiation extending over the centuries, and now
manifest in the latest development of the Christian symbol, 2
may exp'ain why Dn chose just the archetype of wholeness as
an example of symbol formation. For, just as this symbol claims
a central position in the historical documents, individually too
it has an outstanding significance. As is to be expected, individ
ual mandalas display an enormous variety. The overwhelming
majority are characterized by the circle and the quaternity. In
a few, however, the three or the five predominates, for which
there are usually special reasons.
7*7
Whereas ritual mandalas always display a definite style and
a limited number of typical motifs as their content, individual
mandalas make use of a well-nigh unlimited wealth of motifs
and symbolic allusions, from which it can easily be seen that
they are endeavouring to express either the totality of the in
dividual in his inner or outer experience of the world, or its
essential point of reference. Their object is the self in contra
distinction to the ego, which is only the point of reference for
consciousness, whereas the self comprises the totality of the
psyche altogether, i.e., conscious and unconscious. It is there
fore not unusual for individual mandalas to display a division
into a light and a dark half, together with their typical symbols.
An historical example of this kind is Jakob Bohme's mandala, in
his treatise XL Questions concerning the Soule. It is at the
same time an image of God and is designated as such. This is
not a matter of chance, for Indian philosophy, which developed
the idea of the self, Atman or Purusha, to the highest degree,
makes no distinction in principle between the human essence
and the divine. Correspondingly, in the Western mandala, the
scintilla or soul-spark, the innermost divine essence of man, is
characterized by symbols which can just as well express a Godimage, namely the image of Deity unfolding in the world, in
nature, and in man.
7 l8
The fact that images of this kind have under certain circum
stances a considerable therapeutic effect on their authors is em
pirically proved and also readily understandable, in that they
often represent very bold attempts to see and put together
2 [Proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin, in 1950. Cf. Psy
chology and Religion: West and East, pars. 1 igff., 25if., 748s.—EDITORS.]
APPENDIX
apparently irreconcilable opposites and bridge over apparently
hopeless splits. Even the mere attempt in this direction usually
has a healing effect, but only when it is done spontaneously.
Nothing can be expected from an artificial repetition or a delib
erate imitation of such images.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The items of the bibliography are arranged alphabetically under two
headings: A. Ancient volumes containing collections of alchemical
tracts by various authors; B. General bibliography, including crossreferences to the material in section A. Short titles of the ancient
volumes are printed in capital letters.
A.
ANCIENT VOLUMES CONTAINING
COLLECTIONS OF
BY
ALCHEMICAL TRACTS
VARIOUS
AUTHORS
ARS CHEMICA, quod sit licita recte exercentibus, probationer
doctissimorum iurisconsultorum. . . . Argentorati [Strasbourg],
1566.
Contents quoted in this volume:
Septem tractatus seu capitula Hermetis Trismegisti aurei [pp.
7-31; usually referred to as "Tractatus aureus"]
ARTIS AURIFERAE quam chemiam vacant. . . . Basileae [Basel],
[1593]. a vols.
Contents quoted in this volume:
VOLUME Ι
i
ii
iii
Allegoriae super librum Turbae [pp. 139-45]
Aurora consurgens, quae dicitur Aurea hora [pp. 185-246]
[Zosimus:] Rosinus ad Sarratantam episcopum [pp. 277319]
iv [Kallid:] Calidis Liber secretorum [pp. 325-51]
ν Tractatulus Aristotelis de practica lapidis philosophic!
[pp. 361-73]
vi Rachaidibus: De materia philosophic! lapidis [pp. 397~4°4]
vii Liber de arte chymica [pp. 575-631]
VOLUME II
viii
Rosarium philosophorum [pp. 204-384]; contains a version
of the "Visio Arislei," pp. 2460:. Another edition of the
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Artis auriferae, occasionally quoted in this volume, ap
peared in 1572 at Basel; contains the "Tractatus aureus,"
pp. 641ft.
MANGETUS, JOANNES JACOBUS (ed.). BIBLIOTHECA CHEMICA
CURIOSA, seu Rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium thesaurus
instructissimus . . . Coloniae Allobrogum [Geneva], 1702, 2 vols.
Contents quoted in this volume:
VOLUME I
i
Hermes Trismegistus: Tractatus aureus de lapidis physici
secreto [pp. 400-45]
ii Morienus: Liber de compositione alchemiae [pp. 509-19]
VOLUME II
iii Sendivogius: Epistola XIII [p. 496]
THEATRUM CHEMICUM, praecipuos selectorum auctorum trac
tatus . . . continens. Ursellis [Ursel] and Argentorati [Stras
bourg], 1602-61. 6 vols. (Vols. I-III, Ursel, 1602; Vols. IV-VI,
Strasbourg, 1613, 1622, 1661 respectively.)
Contents quoted in this volume:
VOLUME Ι
i Dorn: Speculativae philosophiae, gradus septem vel decern
continens [pp. 255-310]
ii Dorn: De tenebris contra Naturam et vita brevi [pp. 51835]
iii Dorn: De transmutatione metallorum [pp. 563-646]
VOLUME II
iv
Dee: Monas hieroglyphica [pp. 218-43]
VOLUME IV
ν
Hermetis Trismegisti Tractatus vere aureus de lapide philosophici secreto [pp. 672-797; usually referred to as
"Tractatus aureus"]
vi David Lagneus: Harmonia seu Consensus philosophorum
chemicorum (frequently called Harmonia chemica) [pp.
813-903]
VOLUME V
vii Mennens: De aureo vellere . . . libri tres [pp. 267-470]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
VOLUME VI
viii
Vigenerus (Blaise de Vigenere): Tractatus de igne et sale
[PP- J"139]
B.
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·]
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INDEX
INDEX
A
for lapis, 171; triad in, 234; and
union of opposites, 109; and uniting symbol, 289; and wise old
man, 35
abaissement du niveau mental, 1I9,
120, 139, 155
abandonment, 1671
Abarbanel/ Abrabanel, Judah, see
Leone Ebreo
Abercius inscription, 3IOn
ablution, 129
Abraham, Karl, 153 n
Achurayim, lIg8n, 328 , 32 91,335
Acts of the Apostles, 263
Adam, 261) 317; Belial, 328n; First,
338n; Second, 134n, 141
Adler, Alfred, 43
Adler, Gerhard, 352n
Aelian, 236n
Aeons, 295n, 310, 319, 328n
aesthetics, and morals, conflict, 28
Aetius, 325n
Afanas'ev, E. N., 242n
Africa, East, 95; see also Kenya
alcheringa/ alchera/ alcheringamijina,40, 125, 126n) 154
alcohol, 209
Aldrovandus, Ulysses, 2Sn, 124n
Alexander the Great, 144, 145, 343
"Allegoria super librum Turbae,"
IS8n
allegory, distinguished from symbol,
6n
altar, 202
ambivalence: of anima, 200; of maternal attributes, 82
America/ American, 22, 373n
amethysts, 300
Amitayur-dhyana Sutra, 327n) 344n
amnesias, 120
amulets, 197
anaesthetic areas, 120
analysis, 39; personal, and archetypes, 47; see also dream-analysis
analyst: parental imagos projected
on, 60; as saviour, 61; see also doc·
tor
anamnesis, 189
ancestors, 188; identification with,
126
ancestral: roles, 124; souls, 125
ancestress, 81
Ancient of Days, 226
androgyny, Christ's, 174
angel(s): fallen, 214; "fatherly" and
"motherly," Slot, S17, 324; first,
14S; twelve wicked, 324
agathodaimon,3 1 7
d:ypolct, 272
Agricola, Georg, 158n
Ain-Soph, 328n
Air God, 380
albedo, I40n
alchemists/alchemy, 58, 70, 133,
141n, 305, 312, 328, 366, 375, S82;
anima in, 286; Bohme and, 12,
341; Chinese, 293, 358; and en·
ergy, 33; and fish, 140; hermaphrodite/androgyny in, 192, 384; and
individuation, 41; lightning in,
295: mandalas in, 387; and
Mercury/Mercurius, 314, 317; and
prolongation of life, 136; and
spirit, 38, 208, 215; and synonyms
angelos, 143
Angelus Silesius,
421
11
INDEX
anima, 25ft 41, 56#, 123, 175, 177,
239f, 242, 244#, 247, 270/, 284, 285,
317, 320η, 357, 374, 382; in al
chemy, 286; ambivalence of, 200;
and animals, 200; an archetype,
27, 37, 82, 94, 182f, 198; archetype
of life, 32; autonomy of, 30; bi
polar, 199; conservative, 28; deri
vation, 209; empirical concept, 56;
experiences, significance of, 203;
femininity of, 27, 69; image, 69;
Kore as, 199; as ligamentum cor
poris et spiritus, 313; in literature,
71; localization of, 286; loss of,
71/; as Mercurius, 211«; and
mother, 29; in mother complex,
85; old man as, 229; possession
caused by, 124; projection of, 29,
89, 203; religious tinge in, 199; se
cret knowledge of, 30f; as soul, 26,
211; in syzygy, 65; and therapy, 71
Anima Christi, 328«
anima mundi, 236, 312, 383
animal(s), 158, 16m; and anima,
199, 200; archetype as, 216; childprotecting, 168; chthonic, 159; in
fairytales, 221, 230f; helpful, 81,
231, 242; kingdom of heaven and,
35; in mandala, 366; mother as,
85; poltergeist as, 256; powerful,
187; psyche of, 125; symbolic, 166;
talking, 215; see also bear; bees;
beetle; birds; bull; butterfly; cat;
cow; coyote; crab, crayfish, croco
dile; crow; dog; dolphin; dove;
eagle; elephant; elk; falcon; fish;
goat; goose; hare; hawk; horse;
lamb; leopard; lion; magpie; mon
key; octopus; peacock; pig; raven;
sea-horse; serpent; sheep; snake;
spider; swan; tiger; tortoise; verte
brates; vulture; wolf; worm
animosity, 94
animus, 25n, 30, 177, 183, 247, 284,
290f, 306, 317, 318, 333, 336, 357,
382; danger from, 344η; deriva
tion, 209; -figure, 191; localization
of, 286; as mediating function,
197; old man as, 229; "positive,"
215; possession by, 124; repre
sented by quicksilver, 312; repre
sents spirit, 244
Anne, St., 44/f, 68n
anthracites, 300
anthrax, 300«, 33m
Anthroparion/άνθρωπάριον, 158, 223
anthropology, 189
Anthropos, 293, 294, 304, 308, 312,
313. 366, 377
Antichrist, 141
antimony, 301
ape of God, 255
Aphrodite, 327
Apocalypse, 35; Christ of, 51; see
also Revelation, Book of
apocatastasis, 188
Apollo, 236η
apologetics, Christian, 157
apparition, 214η
apperception, 66
apple(s), 27, 223, 228
Aptowitzer, Victor, 33m
Apuleius, 32, 52, 107, 128, 350
aqua permanens, 140
arbor philosophica, 25in, 333; see
also tree, "philosophical"
archetype(s), 4, 58, 153, 177, 357, 384,
388, etc.; activated, 48; as active
personalities, 38; and archetypal
idea, 5n; can rearise spontaneous
ly, 79; cannot be finally explained,
160; constellated, in neuroses, 47;
content not determined, 79; con
tents of collective unconscious, 42,
43; in dreams, 48Q, 53; dynamism
of, 102; function of, 162#; futurity
of, 164$; gods as, 23; identifica
tion with, 351; as link with past,
i6off; loss of, 69; as mediator, 174;
mother as carrier of, 102; as myths
/mythological, 67, 156; no "ra
tional" substitute for, 161; origin
of, 101; patterns of instinctual be
haviour, 44; positive and negative
sides, 226; proof of, 48#; psycho
logical meaning, 5; relatively au-
INDEX
tonomous, 40, .2.2.2; specific energy
of, 63; of transformation, 38; of
wholeness, 388; see also anima;
animus; child; father; maiden;
mother; self; shadow; wise old
man
Aries, 6
Aristotle, 75; Aristotelian reasoning,
76
arroWS, 368/; arrow-head, 382
Ars chemica, 133n
Artemis, 195
arthropods, 56
Artio, Dea, 195
Artis aurilerae, 134n, 140n, 141n,
I58n, 174 n , 286n,33 1n
artists, and anima, 7
ascension, of Christ, 114
ascent, 19
Asiatic cults, 13
"as-if," 156
Asklepios, 311
ass(es): feast of, .258; she-, Ig8
association, .282; free, 49
Assumption, see Mary, the Virgin
Asterius, Bishop, 177n
Astrampsychos, 133n
astrology, 3 10, 343, 344 n
Aswan, 134
atheism, 6.2
Athene, 46, 201
Athi plains, 95
athla/ aexa., 171,241
Atlantis, 263
atman/Alman, 142, 171,224,325
atoms, 57; atomic fission, 253; atomic
theory, 57; atomic world, 224
Attis, see Cybele-Attis myth
attitude, 238; conscious, onesidedness of, 139
attributes, of anthropomorphic divinities, 188
Augustine, St., 4, 18n, 75
"Aurea hora," 134n
aurum philosophicum IPotabile (vitreum, 305; see also gold, philosophical
Australian aborigines, 126n; and an·
cestors, 40, 125; soul-atoms and,
57; see also alcheringa
authority, magic, of female, 82
automatismes telCologiques, 155n
autosuggestion, 63n
Avalon, Arthur, 38n, 7on, 185n,
26ln; see also Woodroffe, Sir John
avatars, 310
Ayik,17°
B
Baba Yaga, 242
babe, unbaptized, 26
Bacon, Josephine D., 185n
ball: game of, 191, 192; - on fools'
feast, 258n; golden, 160, 370; pathfinding, 220n
Balli di Sfessania, 260n
Bandelier, Adolf, 255
Banziger, Hans, 352n
baptism of Christ, 45
Barbelo-Gnosis, ;;P9
Bardesanes, 18
Barlach, Ernst, 215
Baruch, angel, 317, 324
Baruch, Apocalypse of, 295n
Basel,265n
Basilides, 331 n
Bastian, Adolf, 43, 79, 15 1
Bataks, 102
bath, baptismal, 129
Baubo, 88, 185, 186
Baumgartner, Matthias, 325n
Baynes, H. G., 190n
bear, 184, 187, 195, 198,23 2
"beautiful and good," 28
Beauvais, 258
bed,333
bees, 198; "Bees, Woman of the,"
185n
beetle, 187,367
behaviour: archetypes of instinctual,
44; pattern of, 5n
Benares, 369
benedicta viriditas, 322
Benott, Pierre, 28, 30, 71, 200, 285.
286n
42 3
INDEX
Bernoulli, R., 38
Berthelot, Marcellin, 134n, 140n,
ls8n,3oon,31gn,330n
Bes, 106, 21S
Bethesda, pool of, 17, Ig
Bhutia Busty, 32on, 327n
Bible, 20, 141, 237n; see also New
Testament;
Old
Testament;
names of individual books
Biedermeier,28
Binah,335n
Bin Gorion, 145n
biology, and purpose, 260
bird(s): black, 324; dream-symbols,
200ffj earth, 334; in fairy tales, 221,
242; in mandala, 366; three, 342;
white, Igl, 338; see also crow;
dove; eagle; falcon; goose; hawk;
magpie; peacock; raven; swan;
vulture
birth: of "child," 172; dual/second,
45f, 68; miraculous, 166, 167; see
also rebirth; twice-born
Birth, Virgin, see Virgin Birth
bishop, children's, 257
black, 185,326
blackness, 301
Blanke, Fritz, gn, 10
Block, Raymond de, 60n
blood, 18sn; bathings in, 184; drinkings of, 184; sacrificial, 192
bloodstone, 327
boat, self-propelled, 220n
body: one with spirit in God, 324;
subtle, 114,212
bogies, 82
Bohme, Jakob, I1f, 29511, 301S , 3 1 3.
3 1 9, 3 22n , 32 7, 3 2 90, 34 1 , 354.
375,3 81 ,3 8 9
Bon re~igion, 320, 373n
bondsman. 171
Book of the Dead, Tibetan, 356
book: in mandala, 372; of secret wisdam, 220n
Bouche-Leclercq, Auguste, 342n,
343 n
Bouelles, Charles de, see Bovillus
boulders, 292/, 294
Bousset, Wilhelm, 136n
Bovillus, Karl, 9
"Boy, Radiant," 158
boy(s), 16S; naked, 2lsn; spirit as,
21 5
Bozzano, 29Sn
Brahma, city of, 377
Brahma-gods, 286
Brassempouy, "Venus" of, 186
bread, Christ as, 141
breast(s), 343; multiple, 186
bridegroom and bride, 251
Broglie, Louis de, 275
brook, 194
brother-sister pair, royal, 246, 247f
brownies, 223
Buddha, 142, 286, 335, 358; Discourse on the Rule, 338; lotus seat
of, 3281, 338n, 363, 366; and mandala, 130; as puer aeternus, 159
Buddhism, SIgn, 373n; mandala in,
358; -, in Tibetan, 356, 387; reincarnation in, 113; swastika and,
320; see also Hinayana; Mahayana; Zen
Budge, Ernest A. Wallis, 136n
bugari,154
bull, 191, 33Sn; deities, 310
Bultmann, Rudolf, 104n
Buri, F., l04n
butterfly, 187
Bythos,17
C
Cabala, 328, 329, 33 0n , 335
Cabiri, 224, 234, 388
caduceus, 295n, 311
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 2941
"Calidis liber secretorum," 134n
Callot, Jacques, 260
Cancer (zodiacal sign), 342/
cancer, imaginary, 105
carbons, 300
carbuncle, 331 n
Cardan, Jerome (Hieronymus Cardanus),243
INDEX
carnival, 255, 262
carriage, golden, 19 1
Caruso C. G .• 3.152,276
case-histories, 190
Cassian, 176
castle, 361
castration: complex, 68; of mother.
68; self-. 39, 85, 177n
cat, 184
categories, 67n, 76; of the imagination,79
Catholic: Church. ritual of. 128;
mysticism, 174; way of life. 12
cauda pavon is, 33 0 , 332, 338, 375,
37 6
Caussin, Nicholas, 325. 326, 342n
cave, 81, 135, 141
Cellini. Benvenuto, 45, 184n
cerebellum, 166
cerebrospinal system, 19f
cerebrum. 20
Cervula/Cervulus. 257n
chairs, 332
chakra,3 8,26In,366
chalice. 160
Chantepie de la Saussaye. P. D., 59n
chaos. and cosmos, 32
Charles, R. H .• 295n
chen-yen, 293. 307
cherubim, 366
ch'ien (heaven), 358n
child, 158, 173, 183; abandonment
of. 167U; as archetype. 153U. 178f;
divine. 170, 378; eternal, 179: as
god and hero, 165ff; hermaphroditism of, 173U; "imaginary." 159;
invincibility of, 170ff; mythology
of. 151ff, 170; numinous character of. 168; see also motif
children. ancestors reincarnated in,
124
childhood, early. dreams of, 50
China, Taoism in, 8
Chinese: alchemy, 293; philosophy,
59,log;yoga,38
ching (unchangeable power), 359
Chochmah, 335n
chartens, 320
Christ, 109, 333; in alchemy. 312n;
androgyny of, 174; of Apocalypse.
51; ascension. 114; as ass, 259: in
bearskin, vision of, 10; birth of,
festivities, 256f; as bread, 141; and
the Church, 250, 371; divinity of,
13: fiery nature of, 169; fish and
snake attributes, 369: as friend,
133: in inner colloquy, 132;
Mother of, see Mother of Christ;
outer and inner, 128; sacrifice of,
in Mass, 118: symbol of immortal
man, 121: - of self. 367; transfiguration, 114; twice-born, 45; see
also Baptism; bread; conception;
Jesus; Virgin Birth
Christ-child. 52, 128, 158. 169
Christianity, 128,254; and Germanic
tribes, 13f; and Jewish God-concept, 103; monotheism of, 103; of
Negroes, 14; and poverty, 15: "second birth" in, 45; spirit in, 46, 211,
213; world-view of, 7
Christianos,3 19n
Christians, and ritual murder. 191
Christ-image, 9
Christmas tree(s), 13, 261, 268
Christopher, St., 158
Church, the, 22, 81; bride of Christ.
250,377; as corpus mysticum, 165:
freedom and obedience in, 137n;
images represented by, 8; loss of
authority, 13; Mother, 29
church, crooked, 221/
Cicero, 326n
cinnabar, 300, 331n
circle(s). 164, 187,294,304,365; cross
in, 382; God as infinite, 325:
magic, 376; squaring of. 357, 361.
363. 366• 368, 387f
circuits, 326
Circumcision. Feast of, 257
Cistercian Order, 64
city. 81, 361; beloved, 146; heavenly,
35: medieval, 377
Clement, pseudo-, 176
Clement of Alexandria, 176, 325
Clementine Homilies. 324
42 5
INDEX
Cleopatra, 202
"climax" of life, 307
clock, 187
clown, 264
cock, 360
Codex Rhenoviensis (Zurich), 375.
3 83
cognition, 76. 171; transcendental
subject of, 171
colloquy, internal, 131f
colours, 332; in Bohme, 313, 331;
bright, 294; four, 308n , 375, 379,
380; and functions, psychic, 335;
light, 305; in mandalas, 323, 326,
362, 379; red/blue, 322; two symbolical, 313; see also black; green;
red
Comarius, 202
comic strips, 260n
Communism, 127
compass, eight points of, 344n
compensation, 163
complex(es): castration, 67, 68; content of personal unconscious, 42;
father-, 85, 214, 291; - feminine,
89n; - in men and women, 214;
feeling-toned, 4; mother-, 46, 67.
69, 85t!; - of daughter, 86; feminine, 94; - negative. 90 • 98t!;
- positive. projection of, 99; - of
son, 85t!; possession and, 122
complex psychology, therapeutic
method of, 40
complexio oppositorum, 147, 312;
Nicholas Cusanus and, 11; see also
opposites
composition. 332
concentration, 384
conception; failure of, 91; miraculous, 166; of Christ, 52
concupiscentia,356
confirmation lessons, 15
conflict, 288
Confucius, 339
confusion, 278
coniugium solis et lunae, 176
coniunctio, 140, 175, 176, 177, 191,
34 6
Conrad ofWiirzburg, 364
conscious mind: and ego, 187; onesidedness of, 162; in primitives.
153; widening of, 188
consciousness, 142, 171, 357; and
cerebrum, 20; conflict within, 269;
consolidation of, 22; differentiation of, 320; dissociation / dissociability of, 40, 104; dissolution of,
145; expansion of, 252; eye as symbol of, 337; higher, 39, 141, 169,
283; - why seek?, 95; inferior, 18;
maladaptation of, 30; male, 176;
menaced by unconscious, 154; not
whole of psyche, 276; primitive,
lacks coherence, 119; - and myths,
155f; reduced intensity of, ISS:
relics of early stages, 261 n; requires recognition of unconscious,
96; return to darkness, 147; soul
and, 27; subject and object in, 22;
supremacy of, 23: unity of, only a
desideratum, 104; universal, 287f;
urge of, 319: without ego, unknown, 283; see also ego-consciousness
contemplation, 318, 357
cooking vessel, 81
copper, 301, 327
Corinthians, Second Epistle of Paul
to, 328n
corn, 169
cornucopia, 81
corpus, 313: glorificationis I glorificatum, 114. 171, 358; incorruptibile,
35 8; mysticum,367
Corpus Hermeticum, 4,51,75
cortices, 328, 336, 338
corybant, 184
counter-earth, 281
country, 81
courtyard, 361
cow, 81, 227; leathern, 129
coyote, 264
crab(s), 187,315, 342f; hermit, 342
Crawley, Alfred Ernest, 57
crayfish, 342
creation, 308, 356, 357
4~6
INDEX
crocodile(s), 159, IB4, 27In, 342n
cross, 296n; alchemical symbol, 301;
in Bohme, 298tt, 319, 327; in circle,
382; dream symbol, 19B; in mandala, 336, 361; in Navajo symbolism, 363n; and swastika, 48, 326;
Virgin Mary as, 82
crow~
330n
crowd: individual in, 126; psychology of, 125
crown, 326
crucifixion, 135, ,184/, 382; of evil
spirit, 248; ofraven, 235/,241
cryptomnesia, 44, 30Bn
crystal, 79, 80
Cucorogna, 260
cucullatus, 177
culture, 373
Cumont, Franz, 135n, 3un
cupids, 177
Cusanus, Nicholas, I I
Custance, John, 39n
Cybele, 195; Cybele-Attis myth, 81,
85
cymbals, 192
Cyranides, 331n
D
Dactyls, 178,223
daimonion, 252
Danae, 317
dance~ 184, 185n,lgB,200
dances, 257
dangers, 184
Daniel,388
Dante, 234, 363
dark, fear of, 16g
Dark Night of the Soul, 319n
darkness, 147; place of, 140
Daudet, Leon, 124
daughter: and mother, 188; mothercomplex in, 86tt; "nothing-but,"
97/; self expressed by, 187
dead, primitives and souls of, 210
"De arte chymica," 13411
death, 147; early, 85; as symbol/symbolic, 82, 12g; voluntary, 32
Decius,136n
Dee, John, 327
Deesse Raison, 92
De Gubernatis, Angelo, 343
Deianeira, 123,324
deification rites, 142
deity(ies): male-female pairs, 59:
symbols for, 3241
Delacotte, Joseph, 64n
Delatte, Louis, 331 n
delight-maker, 262
delirium, 155
delusions, 50, 183
Demeter, 81, 88, go, 115n, 182, 184tt,
188, Ig5, 203
Democritus (alchemist), 130
Democritus (philosopher) of Abdera,
57, 32 5
demon(s), 197
Deo concedente, 1631
Dervish monasteries, 387
descent, dual, 451, 68n
deus terrenus, 171
devil, the, 103, 108, 238, 248, 339,
376; "ape of God," 255; in Faust,
146; fish and snake attributes, 369;
his grandmother, 103; Leviathan
as, 316n; as raven, 240; represents
shadow, 322; spiritual character
of, 213; as tempter, 214
Dhulqarnein, 143tt
diamond body, 358
Diana, 195
Diels, Hermann, 325n
Dieterich, Albrecht, 51
Digulleville, Guillaume de, see Guillaume de Digulleville
diminutives, 224
Dionysius (pseudo-), the Areopagite,
4,34 In
Dionysius Thrax, 325n
Dionysus, 62, 107, 118
Dioscuri, 121, 13 1, 144, 147n
directions, four, 380
discontent, 70
discontinuity, 275n
427
INDEX
dissociation, 139, 165
distaff,225
Divine, experience of the, 11
divinity. splitting of, 103
divorce, 29, 387
Docetists, 295n
doctor, 216; see also analyst
doctrinairism, 93
dog(s): in Faust, 146; in Khidr legend, 136n; miraculous, 22on;
three, 378
dogma, II, 12; and collective unconscious, 12, 22; reward and punishment,27
dolphin(s), 177, 192
Don Juanism, 85, 87
donkey, see ass
dorje, 358
Dorn, Gerard, 193, 194, 330n
dove,45,52
dragon (s), 159, 166, Ig7f, 383; in alchemy, 376, 377; dream-symbol,
201; evil symbol, 82; in fairy tales,
229; in mandala, 382, 383; Mercurius as, 311, 377; and "River
Map," 359; sun identified with,
157; symbol of self, 187; water, of
Tao, 18; winged and wingless, 314
dragon's blood, 300
drama, mystery, 117
dream(s), 21, 183, 184n, 189, 282,
283; as anticipation of future, 279;
archetypal, 306; -, images in, 18g;
and archetypes, 48/J,' "big," 306,
307; children's, 353; of early childhood, 50; and individuation, I3o!;
and mythology, 152; psychology
of, 152; relation to dreamer, 118;
repressed instincts sources of, 49;
spirit in, 214ffi symbols in series,
53; and therapy of neuroses, 178;
typical, 183; INSTANCES OF DREAMS
(in order of occurrence in text):
lake at foot of mountain, 17;
water, 18; mountain (Grail Castle), 19; black and white magician,
34, 21 6t; white bird and woman,
Ig1; bull and child, 191; golden
pig and hole, Igl; youth with cymbals, 192; sheep sacrifice, 192; den
of snakes, 192; divine woman
sleeping, Ig2; fields of grain, 193;
sky-woman on mountain, 195;
bear-goddess, 195f; pictures by H.
C. Lund, 197; dancer who changes
shape, Ig8; girl on cross in church,
198; transformations into animals,
200t; grey world-globe, 306; snake
requiring sacrifice, 306n; table
and chairs, 332; bed moved from
its place, 333; young man with
lamp in eye, 336; horned animal
that ate others, 353; embroidery
pattern, 362; magnolia tree in
Liverpool, 364dream-analysis, and free association,
49
dromenon,128
dualism, Manichaean, 103
Du Cange, Charles, 257n, 258, 259
Duchesne, Louis, 185n
duplication motif, 344
Diirkheim, Emile, 79
Dutch East Indies, 365
dwarf(s), 158.165,215,222
dyad, 375
E
eagle, 335 n , 376
earth. 81; Mother, see Mother; Virgin Mary as, 107
east, symbOlism of, attraction of
Europeans to, 8
Easter: candle, 185n; eggs, 13
ecclesia spiritualis, 87
Ecclesiasticus, 354n
Eckhart, Meister, 158, 215n
ecstasy, 287
Edem, 310.317, 324. 330nJ368
Eden, Garden of, 27,35
education, of the educator, 175
egg (s), 292/J, 304, 319n, 377; golden,
159, 160, 172, 368; in mandala,
347, 37 1 ; Orphic, 293, 361; pea-
428
INDEX
cock's, 375; philosophical, 293;
world, tjll
ego, 318, 319, 357, 358; and consciousness, 275; differentiation
from mother, 102; not centre of
unconscious, 281; and personality,
165, 187; unconscious and role of,
27 8
ego-consciousness, 141, 288; and
archetypes, 286; awakening of.
102; emancipation of, 230; identification with self, 145; possessed
by shadow and anima, 123; primitive. 33; supremacy of, 132
Egypt, S4Sn; infant in tomb, 134;
initiation in, 14; Mary's flight into, 258; rebirth ritual, 45
Egyptian (s): land of the, 18; repre·
sentation of God, 326
Egyptians, Gospel according to the,
176
el6os, see idea, Platonic
eight, see numbers
Eisler, Robert, 3lln
Eleazar, Abraham, 298n
elements, four, 3 19, 32 9. 335
elephant. 187
Eleusis, 14; see also Mysteries
elf, 158
Elgon, Mount, 169, 268
Elgonyi tribe, 17
Eliade, Mircea, 56
Elijah, 14 1, 145, 237n
elk,264
Elohim, 310, 317, 324
Ememqut. 227f
emotion(s), 96, 209, 278; mass, 47;
violent, 120
empiricism, 76
emptiness, 98
Empusa.82
enantiodromia, 215, 229, 239 n, 272,
346, 348, 353; in symbolic process,
38
energy, 33; consciousness and, 142;
specific, of archetypes, 63
Enkidu,145
Enlightenment. 157
Enoch. 388
entelechy, 164/, 166
enthusiasm. 213
envy, 360
Ephesians, Epistle to the, I2 In, 342n
Ephesus, 136n
epidemics, psychic, 127, 157,278
epilepsy, 78
episcopus pueroTum, 257, 258
Epona,250
Erman, Adolf, 326n
Eros, 86; overdeveloped, 88, 94ff
Erskine, John, 28, 202
esoteric teaching, 7; archetypes in, 5
eternity, 147, 196
ethnology, 53
euhemerism, 157
Euhemeros, 60
Europa, 191
evangeliSots: attributes/symbols of,
!l34n, 366; four, 34tn, 346n
Eve, 27, 3 1 2, 3 1 7
evil, 337n; chthonic triad and, 234;
cross and, 382; and good, 103,215,
217; matter and, 109; reality of,
32 2 /,34 tn
evil eye, 197, 380
evil spirit, 213, 249, 377; transgression of, 248
e:<ercitia spiritualia, 129, 131[
existences, previous, 287
exposure, of child, 167
extraversion, 238
eye(s), 336; in Bohme, 381; and man·
dala, 337, 361 , 377, 380; motif,
346; o£ Osiris, 226; peacock's, 330;
symbol of consciousness/God, 337;
of Wotan, 226; see also evil eye
Ezekiel, 346n; seraphim of. ~P9;
vision of. 234n, 355n, 366; wheel
of, 329n, 388
F
"factor(s)"; anima as, 27: gods as, 23
fairy tales, 155, 207fJ; archetypes in,
5, 207ff; Estonian, 218; EXAMPLES:
INDEX
fairy tales (cont.):
Czar's Son and His Two Companions, 228/; diagrams on wall, 1291;
Ememqut and the Creator, 2271;
How Orphan Boy Found his Luck,
218fJ; Maria Morevna, 242; OneSided Old Man. 2261; Princess in
the Tree. 23 Iff, 235/, 243ff; Soldier
and Black Princess. 225/; Son-inLaw from Abroad, 228/; Stepdaughter and Real Daughter, 225;
see also 218-42 passim
faith, 208, 350
falcon, 367
faILth~23°,328n
fantasies, 66, 172, 183; archetypal
images in, 189; and dreams, 49;
Miller. 189; personal. and impersonal, 155; series of, 190
fantasy: creative. 78; erotic. 25: infantile, 83; intensification of, 180
fasces, 48
fascination, 26,69,377,378
fate, goddess of. 81
father, 102; archetype, 161 n; -complex, see complex; -figure, in
dreams, 214; -imago. see imago,
parental; pneuma as, 324; self expressed by, 187; tribal, 62; unconscious incestuous relationship
with,88
Father and Son, Christian formula
of. 12
fatigue, 120, 139
Faust, 284; see also Goethe
"fear, maker of," 17, 170
Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 54
feeling-values, 103; see also functions
femininity, three ness and, 244
Fendt, Leonhard, 176
Fescennia, 260n
festum: asinoTum, 258; fatuoTum,
258n; pueToTum, 258; stultoTum,
257
Ficino, Marsilio, 314n
field,81
Fierz-David, Linda, 28n, 124n
figures, geometrical, 187
filia mystica, 201
filius: philosophoTum, 140; regius,
215; sapientiae, 106, 158, 171
Finland, child-motif in, 151
fire, 16g, 316, 327n, 356; ever-living,
33; fire-god, 51; wise old man and,
224
firmamen t, 187
first half of life, 120
fish, 146; in Abercius inscription,
310n; alchemical "round," 140;
content of unconscious, 139;
Great, 310; in Khidr legend, 138f;
in mandala, 3691,' meals, of early
Christians, 141; "Nun" as, 138;
symbol, 142; -, of mother, 82; -,
of saviour, 18; transformation of,
141
Fishes, aeon of, 309, 310
five, see numbers
Flamel, Nicholas, 140n
flash,2951
Flournoy, Theodore, 55, 155n
flower(s), 159, 160, 187,361,365,367;
Golden, 363
flute, 220n
FO,159
fog, blue, 353
folklore, 217; child motif in, 158;
devil in, 255
folktales, 184, 217ff
font: baptismal, 45, 81; benediction
of,45
fools' feast/holiday, 257, 258
force. lines of, 306, 313
Fordham, Michael, 156n
Forest, King ofthe. 222
foster-parents, fantasy of. 45
Foucart, Paul Fran~ois. 177n
fountain. 221; Mercurial, 140n
four: a feminine number. 234; see
also numbers
fourness, 234
France, 258
Franz, Marie-Louise von, 21 7n
freedom. 163
Freeman, Kathleen, 32Sn
43 0
INDEX
Freud, Sigmund: and aetiology of
neuroses, 83; and free association,
49; on Leonardo, 44, 46, 68n; and
Oedipus legend, 152-3n; on religious inhibition of thought, 69n;
theory and method, 54f; view of
psyche, 43; view of unconscious, 3,
277, 28 4
Freudian, 303; psychology, 29
friend(s), 133; pair of, 147; two,
parable of, 121f; two helpful, 147
friendship, 86; of Mithras and sungod, 131; of Moses and Khidr, 122;
of two birds, 121 t
Frobenius, Leo, 310n
function(s): four psychic, 77, 153,
2371,320, 332; -, and colours, 335;
inferior, 123, 237, 238, 24 1, 244,
303. 332; loss of. hysterical, 120;
pairs of, 303n; superior, 238;
three/triad of, 241, 242; transcendent, 289; triads of, 330n; see also
feeling
G
Galatea. 373
gana, 119n
Garbe, Richard, 82n
garden, 81
garnet(s). 300, 301
Gebhurah,335 n
Gedulah. 335n
Geist, 209
genes, 284
Genesis, Book of, 299n
gerlO.golden. 368, 370
GerlOanic: soul, 146; tribes, and
Christianity, 13t
GerInany, 127
GeSSlOann. Gustav WilhellO, 300n
"getting stuck," 38, 2g1, 318
ghost, u5
ghost-stories, 158
ghost trap, 268
giant, 161n
GilgalOesh, 145
girl, unknown young, 184
Glauber, Johann Rudolph, 33w
globes. 374
GnosticislO/Gnosis/Gnostic, 12, 191,
3 10, 368 ; coniunctio in, 175, 177;
herlOaphrodite in, 174; and Holy
Ghost, 64; of 1m,tin, 317. 324,
330n; Naassene, 368; peacock in,
375; "psychic" and "spiritual"
lOan in, 26; spirit/dove in, 45;
syzygies in, 59, 70; see also BarbeloGnosis; Soul, Hymn to the
goat,226,338,339,34 2
god(s), Igg; child-, 151, 158, 165tf;
fire-, 51; "light," 103; as psychic
factors, 23; self expressed by, 187;
seven planetary, 136n; sun as, 6,
51; unreliability of, 145f
God, 211; back of, 328n, 330; Christian conception of. 11; dual vision
of, 64; as Father, Mother, and Son,
in Brother Klaus's vision, 10; four
spirits of, 335; and lotus, 326;
the lOandala as an ilOage of, 389;
nalOe of, 330; of New Testament,
ll; spirit as, 208, 213; wise old
man and, 225; Yahwistic conception of, 11; see also Son of God
goddess, 330; anima as, 2g; as
mother, 81; Mother, 177n; self expressed by, 187
godfather/godnlother,45,68,93
godhead, spirit and, 211
God-image, 4, 246, 324, 354; see also
Imago Dei
Goethe, 6g, 101, 104, 209, 223, 224,
285; Faust, 28, 29, 96n, 97n , 98,
114, 146, 15 8, 15g n , 177, 183, 234,
286n, 373, 389
Goetz, Bruno, 159, 215n
Gog, 144, 146
gold, 305, 317; alchemical sign for,
301; hoard of, 157; philosophical,
348, see also aurum philosoph icum; and sun, 312; symbol of
Anthropos, 313
Golden Age, 263, 268
good, see evil
goose, of Hermes, 376
43 1
INDEX
Helen of Troy, 28, 301, 202
Helios. 40. 52. 128
hematite. 327
hemorrhage. gl
hemlock. 177n
heng (all-pervading power), 359
Hephaestus, 374
Hera, 45, 343
HeracIes, 45, 123, 167, 17 1, 343;
cycle. 24 In; "Prophet," 324
Heraclitus/Heraclitean, 16,26,33
Hercules Morbicida, 30In
heredity, 78
hermaphrodite, 6gn, 173, 174, 176.
374; divine, 67; Mercurius as, 158;
Platonic. Ig2
hermaphroditism, of child. 173tJ
Hermas, "Shepherd" of, 37
Hermes. 133. 17 8• 227, 255, 306.
30 7n , 3 11 , 3 12 • 377; ithyphallic.
106, 314: Kyllenios, 295, 302
Hermes Trismegistus. 4n, 37, 311,
374
Hermetic philosophy, 60n, 175, 176;
see also alchemy
hero(es), 197, 199. 218, 229, 285;
birth of, 141; child, 165tJ; -, as
culture-, 169, 171, 183: cult-, idenH
tification with. 128; myths of, 6gn,
172. 180; old man and. 217; self
Hades, 14on, 184
as, 146; sun as/solar, 6, 343n;
Haggard, H. Rider, 28. 30, 71, 200.
transformations of, I t 7
285. 286n
heterosuggestion, 63n
hallucination, 214n
hexad,372
Hal Safiieni, 186
hierogamy, of sun and moon, 314n
Hans, Stupid, 255
hieroglyph. 302
Hanswurst,255
hieros gamos, 109, 176. 177. 22g
Harding, M. Esther, 316n
Hildegard of Bingen. St., 381
hare(s), 81, 378
Hinayana Buddhism, 358
Hartmann, Eduard von, 3, 152,276
Hindu: philosophy. 36; speculation.
Hauck, Albert. 324n
17 1
hawk, 264
Hinduism, 310
heart. 20, 296
Hipparchus.6
heaven. 24, 27,81; kingdom of. 221;
Hippolytus. 166n, l77n, 295n, 302n,
see also Queen of Heaven
311n,317n,324,33In
Hecate. 100, 182. 185. 186
Hiranyagarbha, 142, 368, 370, 371,
Helen