5.	
Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
spear the man. Thehieros gamos was an essential component of many cults and played an important part in various sects.22 
	215 	One can easily imagine that just as the Australian bushmen 
perform a sort of hieros gamos with the earth, so the same or a similar idea could be represented by producing fire from two pieces of wood. The ritual coitus is enacted, not by two people, but by two simulacra, Pururavas and Urvasi, the male and female fire-sticks. (CL pI. xmb.) 
SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
see the sexual symbolism of fire-making simply as a gratuitous addition to priestly lore. That may be true of certain ritualistic elaborations of the fire mystery, but the question remains whether fire-making originally had a deeper connection with sex. We know that similar rites are practised among primitives from studies of the Wachandi, of Australia,19 who in spring perform the following piece of fertility-magic: They dig a hole in the ground, so shaping it and setting it about with bushes that it looks like a woman's genitals. Then they dance round this hole all night, holding their spears in front of them in imitation of an erect penis. As they dance round, they thrust their spears into the hole, shouting: "Pulli nira, pulli nira wataka!" (Not a pit, not a pit, but a c--!). Obscene dances of this kind are found among other tribes as well.2° 
	214 	In this rite of spring 21 there is enacted a sacramental mating, 
with the hole in the earth representing the woman, and the 
19 Preuss, "Der Ursprung der Religion und Kunst," p. 358. 
20 Cf. Schultze, Psychologie der Naturvolker, pp. 161f. 
21 This primitive play leads to the phallic plough symbolism of higher cultures. 'Apoiw means 'to plough' and possesses in addition the poetic meaning of 'to impregnate: The Latin arare means simply 'to plough,' but the phrase "fundum alienum arare" is the equivalent of 'plucking cherries in your neighbour's garden.' There is an excellent picture of the phallic plough on a vase in [or once in] the Museo Archeologico in Florence: it portrays a row of six naked ithyphallic men carrying a plough which is represented ithyphallically (fig. 15). (Cf. Dieterich. Mutter Erde, pp. 107f£.) The "carrus navalis" (Carnival) of our spring festivals during the Middle Ages was occasionally a plough. (Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, p. 40, cited in Dieterich, p. 109.) Prof. Emil Abegg, of Zurich, has drawn my attention to the work of Meringer, "Wiirter und Sachen," which demonstrates a farreaching fusion of libido-symbols with external materials and external activities, and lends the strongest support to the views I have outlined above. Meringer bases his argument on two Indo-European roots, "uen and "ueneti. IEur. "uen, Olnd. vdn, vdna, = 'wood: Agni is called garbhas vaniim, 'fruit of the womb of the woods: IEur. "ueneti = 'he ploughs' (er ackert)-piercing the ground and tearing it up with a sharp piece of wood. The verb itself is not verified, because the primitive method of agriculture it denoted-a sort of hoeing-died out at a very early date. When a better method of tillage was discovered, the designation for the primitive ploughed field was transferred to pastureland and meadows; hence Goth. vinja, Gr. vop.r" Olcel. vin, 'pasture, meadow.' Also perhaps the Icel. Van en, gods of agriculture. Also IEur. "uenos, 'enjoyment of love,' Lat. Venus. From the emotional significance of "uenos comes OHG. vinnan, 'to rage'; also Goth. vens, Gr. <>-'7rl<, OHG. wan, 'expectation, hope'; Skr. van, 'to want, desire'; G. Wonne, 'ecstasy'; Olcel. vinr, 'beloved, friend: From the connotation ackern arose G. wohnen, 'to dwell: OE. won, 'dwelling,' a transition found 
150 

216 

Fig. 15. The phallic plough From a Greek vase 
Of all the components of the psyche, sex is undoubtedly the one with the strongest affective tone. Certain persons are therefore inclined to assume that everything which bears an obvious analogy to sex must of necessity be derived from it, on the 
only in the Germanic languages. From wohnen comes gewohnen, 'to get accustomed, to be wont'; OIcel. vanr, 'accustomed: From ackern, again, comes sich milhen, Plagen, 'to take trouble or pains'; OIcel. vinna, 'to work: OEG. winnan, 'to toil or drudge'; Goth. vinnan, Gr. 7rU<TXELV, 'to suffer,' vunns, 7r(J.eryJ1.a, 'suffering: On the other hand, from ackern comes gewinnen, erlangen, 'to win, attain,' OHG. giwinnan; but also vedetzen, 'to wound,' Goth. vunds. 'vVound' in the original sense, therefore, meant the ground torn up by hoeing. From verletzen come schlagen, 'to strike: besiegen, 'to conquer'; OHG. winna, 'strife'; Old Saxon winnan, 'to battle: (Fig. 16.) 
22 The old custom of the "bridal bed" in the field, to make the field fruitful, expresses the analogy in the clearest possible way: as I make this woman fruitful, so I make the earth fruitful. The symbol canalizes the libido into cultivating and fructifying the earth. (Cf. pI. xlb.) Cf. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, I, for exhaustive evidence. 
151 

6.	
SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
hypothesis that the sexual libido comes up against some sort of barrier which compels it to seek a substitute activity in the form of a ritual analogy. In order to account for the partial conversion and transformation of libido, Freud assumed that the barrier was the incest-taboo. Strictly speaking, however, the incest-taboo is a check on the endogamous tendency in man. For an instinct to be forcibly converted into something else, or even partially checked, there must be a correspondingly higher energy on the opposite side. Freud rightly supposed that this 
217 

Fig. 16. The twirling·stick From an Aztec hieroglYPh-painting 
energy came from fear) and in order to explain the fear, he had to resort to the more or less plausible hypothesis of the primal horde, which, like a herd of gorillas, was tyrannized over by a ferocious patriarch. To complete the picture, we would have to add an equally awe-inspiring matron who instils fear into the daughters, just as the primordial father compels the savage respect of the sons. We would then have a patrilineal and a matrilineal source of anxiety to match the primitive conditions. I can well imagine that the more neurotic among the troglodytes 
"thought" in this manner. 
Such a derivation of the motive for checking the instincts 
seems to me somewhat doubtful, to say the least of it, for the simple reason that the tensions inside a primitive group are never greater than those involved in the struggle for existence of the group as a whole. Were it otherwise, the group would speedily perish. What does constitute a serious threat to the primitive group is the endogamous tendency, which has to be checked in order to exorcize the danger. The best means to this end seems to be the widespread custom of cross-cousin-mar- 
152 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
riage,23 because it keeps the endogamous and exogamous 1 encies balanced. The danger that then threatens the group Cl from the very advantages it has gained through checking endogamous tendency to which the incest-taboo applies. group acquires an inner stability, opportunities for expan: and hence greater security. That is to say, the source of fear not lie inside the group, but in the very real risks which struggle for existence entails. Fear of enemies and of hu predominates even over sexuality, which is, as we know problem at all for the primitive, as it is far simpler to g woman than it is to get food. Fear of the consequences of h unadapted is a compelling reason for checking the instil Confronted with disaster, one is obliged to ask oneself ho is to be remedied. The libido that is forced into regressior the obstacle always reverts to the possibilities lying dorman the individual. A dog, finding the door shut, scratches at it u it is opened, and a man unable to find the answer to a prob rubs his nose, pulls his lower lip, scratches his ear, and so or he gets impatient, all sorts of other rhythms appear: he st drumming with his fingers, shuffles his feet about, and it will be long before certain distinctly sexual analogies manifest th selves, such as masturbation gestures. Koch-Griinberg, writin~ South American rock-paintings, tells us how the Indians sit the rocks and scratch lines on them with sharp stones wl waiting for their canoes to be transported round the rapid In the course of time there have arisen chaotic drawings scribbles that might perhaps be compared with doodling blotting-pads. This makes it easier to understand what Mael linck tells us in his Blue Bird: 2fi the two children who are 10 ing for the blue bird in the Land of the Unborn find a boy "picks his nose. It is said that one day he will discover a new I when the earth has grown cold. Spielrein's patient 26 associal the act of boring with fire and procreation. She said: "You nE iron to bore through the earth. With iron you can make cc people out of stone. With a hot iron you can bore through t mountain. The iron becomes red-hot when it is pushed inte stone." 
23 Cf. my "Psychology of the Transference," pp. 225ff. 24 Sudamerihanische Felszeichnungen, p. 17. 
	25 Teixeira de Mattos trailS., p. 100. 	26 P. 371. 
ll).~ 

218 
219 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
Now when the libido is forced back by an obstacle, it does not necessarily regress to earlier sexual modes of application, but rather to the rhythmic activities of infancy which serve as a model both for the act of nutrition and for the sexual act itself. The material before us does not seem to preclude the possibility that the invention of fire-making came about in the manner suggested, that is, through the regressive reawakening of rhythm.27 This hypothesis seems to me psychologically possible, though I would not maintain that this is the only way in which the discovery of fire could have been made. It could just as well have been made from striking flints together. All I am concerned with here is the psychological process, whose symbolisms suggest that fire-making may possibly have been discovered in this way. 
Even if these rhythmic activities give one the impression of a game, one is nevertheless impressed by the intentness and energy with which this alleged game is conducted. It is well known that such rites (for that is how we must regard them) are performed with great seriousness and an uncommon display of energy, which is in marked contrast to the notorious laziness of primitive man. The so-called game takes on the character of purposeful effort. If certain tribes can dance all night long to a monotonous tune of three notes, then, to our way of thinking, the play-element is entirely lacking: it is more like an exercise with a set purpose. This is in fact the case, for rhythm is a classic device for impressing certain ideas or activities on the mind, and what has to be impressed and firmly organized is the canalization of libido into a new form of activity. Since the rhythmic activity can no longer find an outlet in the act of feeding after the nutritional phase of development is over, it transfers itself not only to the sphere of sexuality in the strict sense, but also to the "decoy mechanisms," such as music and dancing, and finally to the sphere of work. The close connection which work always has with music, singing, dancing, drumming, and all manner of rhythms in primitive societies, indeed its absolute dependence on these things, is very striking. This connection forms the bridge to sexuality, thus giving the primitive an opportunity to sidetrack and evade the task in hand. Because diversions of this kind are a frequent occurrence, and are to be 27 For evidence of this, see Blicher, Arbeit und Rhythmus. 
154 

220 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
found in all spheres of culture, people have been led to beliel that there is no differentiated achievement that is not a subsl tute for some form of sexuality. I regard this as an error, albe a very understandable one considering the enormous psych logical importance of the sexual instinct. I myself once he] similar views, at least in so far as I assumed that the variOl forms of attraction and protection of the young came from tl splitting and differentiation of an originally sexual libido, c of the reproductive instinct in its widest sense, and were ther, fore the preliminary stages of all cultural activities, so far; these are by nature instinctive. One reason for this error w; the influence of Freud; the othet, and more cogent, reason w, the element of rhythm which often attaches to these function Only later did I realize that the rhythmic tendency does ne come from the nutritional phase at all, as if it had migrate from there to the sexual, but that it is a peculiarity of emotiona processes in general. Any kind of excitement, no matter in wha phase of life, displays a tendency to rhythmic expression, peI severation, and repetition, as can easily be seen from th repetition, assonance, and alliteration of complex-toned reac tion-words in the association experiment.28 Rhythmic pattern therefore offer no ground for assuming that the function the' affect originated in sexuality. 
The psychological importance of sexuality and the existeno of plausible sexual analogies make a deviation into sex ex tremely easy in cases of regression, so that it naturally seems a: if all one's troubles were due to a sexual wish that is unjustl) denied fulfilment. This reasoning is typical of the neurotic Primitives seem to know instinctively the dangers of this devia tion: when celebrating the hieros gamos, the Wachandi, oj Australia, may not look at a woman during the entire ceremony Among a certain tribe of American Indians, it was the custom for the warriors, before setting out on the warpath, to move in a circle round a beautiful young girl standing naked in the centre. Whoever got an erection was disqualified as unfit fOl military operations. The deviation into sex is used-not always, but very frequently-as a means of escaping the real problem. One makes oneself and others believe that the problem is purely 28 Eberschweiler, "Untersuchungen liber die sprachlichen Komponenten der Assoziation." 
15.r) 

I,yNIllUL;:> UI' lKAJ";:>I'UKlVlAllUJ'<. lWU 
sexual, that the trouble started long ago and that its causes lie in the remote past. This provides a heaven-sent way out of the problem of the present by shifting the whole question on to another and less dangerous plane. But the illicit gain is purchased at the expense of adaptation, and one gets a neurosis into the bargain. 
	221 	In an earlier paragraph we traced the checking of the in- 
stincts back to fear of the very real dangers of existence in this world. But external reality is not the only source of this instinctinhibiting fear, for primitive man is often very much more afraid of an "inner" reality-the world of dreams, ancestral spirits, demons, gods, magicians, and witches. Although we, with our rationalism, think we can block this source of fear by pointing to its unreality, it nevertheless remains one of those psychic realities whose irrational nature cannot be exorcized by rational argument. You can free the primitive of certain superstitions, but you cannot talk him out of his alcoholism, his moral depravity, and general hopelessness. There is a psychic reality which is just as pitiless and just as inexorable as the outer world, and just as useful and helpful, provided one knows how to circumvent its dangers and discover its hidden treasures. "Magic is the science of the jungle," a famous explorer once said. Civilized man contemptuously looks down on primitive superstitions, which is about as sensible as turning up one's nose at the pikes and halberds, the fortresses and tall-spired cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Primitive methods are just as effective under primitive conditions as machine-guns or the radio are under modern conditions. Our religions and political ideologies are methods of salvation and propitiation which can be compared with primitive ideas of magic, and where such "collective representations" are lacking their place is immediately taken by all sorts of private idiocies and idiosyncrasies, manias, phobias, and daemonisms whose primitivity leaves nothing to be desired, not to speak of the psychic epidemics of our time before which the witch-hunts of the sixteenth century pale by comparison. 
	222 	Notwithstanding our rationalistic attempts to argue it out 
of existence, psychic reality is and remains a genuine source of anxiety whose danger increases the more it is denied. The biological instincts then meet not only with outer obstacles but 
156 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
with an internal resistance. The same psychic system which, or one side, is based on the concupiscence of the instincts, rest: on the other side on an opposing will which is at least as stront: as the biological urge. 
	223 	Except when motivated by external necessity, the will te 
suppress or repress the natural instincts, or rather to overcome their predominance (superbia) and lack of co-ordination (con. cuPiscentia), derives from a spiritual source; in other words, the determining factor is the numinous primordial images. These images, ideas, beliefs, or ideals operate through the specific energy of the individual, which he cannot always utilize at will for this purpose, but which seems rather to be drawn out of him by the images. Even the authority of the father is seldom powerful enough to keep the spirit of the sons in permanent subjection. This can only happen when the father appeals to or expresses an image which, in the eyes of humanity, is numinous, or at any rate backed up by the consensus of opinion. The suggestive power of the environment is itself a consequence of the numinosity of the image and intensifies it in turn. If there is no such suggestion, the collective effect of the image will be negligible, or non-existent, even though it may be extremely intense as an individual experience. I mention this circumstance because it is a controversial point whether the inner images, or collective representations, are merely suggested by the environment, or whether they are genuine and spontaneous experiences. The first view simply begs the question, because it is obvious that the content suggested must have come into existence somehow and at some time. There was a time when the utterances of mythology were entirely original, when they were numinous experiences, and anyone who takes the trouble can observe these subjective experiences even today. 1 have already given one example 29 of a mythological statement (the solar phallus) coming alive again under circumstances which rule out any possibility of direct transmission. The patient was a small business employee with no more than a secondary school education. He grew up in Zurich, and by no stretch of imagination can I conceive how he could have got hold of the idea of the solar phallus, of the vision moving to and fro, and of the origin of the wind. I myself, who would 29 [See pp. lOolf., above.] 
157 

224 
225 
226 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
have been in a much better position, intellectually, to know about this singular concatenation of ideas, was entirely ignorant of it and only discovered the parallel in a book of Dieterich's which appeared in 1910, four years after my original observation (1906).30 
This observation was not an isolated case: 31 it was manifestly not a question of inherited ideas, but of an inborn disposition to produce parallel images, or rather of identical psychic structures common to all men, which I later called the archetypes of the collective unconscious. They correspond to the concept of the "pattern of behaviour" in biology. 
The archetype, as a glance at the history of religious phenomena will show, has a characteristically numinous effect, so that the subject is gripped by it as though by an instinct. What is more, instinct itself can be restrained and even overcome by this power, a fact for which there is no need to advance proofs. 
Whenever an instinct is checked or inhibited, it gets blocked and regresses. Or, to be more precise: if there is an inhibition of sexuality, a regression will eventually occur in which the sexual energy flowing back from this sphere activates a function in some other sphere. In this way the energy changes its form. Let us take as an example the Wachandi ceremony: in all probability the hole in the earth is an analogy of the mother's genitals, for when a man is forbidden to look at a woman, his Eras reverts to the mother. But as incest has to be avoided at all costs, the hole in the earth acts as a kind of mother-substitute. Thus, by means of ceremonial exercise, the incestuous energycomponent becomes as it were desexualized, is led back to an infantile level where, if the operation is successful, it attains another form, which is equivalent to another function. It is to be assumed, however, that the operation is accomplished only with difficulty, for the primary instinct is composed of an endogamous ("incestuous") tendency and an exogamous one, and must therefore be split into two. This splitting is connected with consciousness and the process of becoming conscious. The regression is always attended by certain difficulties because the energy clings with specific force to its object, and on being 
30 Further details of this case in "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious," 31 Cf. my book with Kerenyi, Science of Mythology, and my Psychology and Alchemy, pp. 47ff. 
158 

227 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
changed from one form carries something of its previous cha] acter into the next form.32 So although the resultant phenomen have the character of a sexual act, it is not a sexual act an longer. In the same way fire-boring is only an analogy of th sexual act, just as the latter often has to serve as a linguisti, analogy for all sorts of other activities. The presexual, early in fan tile stage to which the libido reverts is characterized b~ numerous possibilities of application, because, once the libidc has arrived there, it is restored to its original undifferentiatec polyvalency. It is therefore understandable that the libidc which regressively "invests" this stage sees itself confronted witt a variety of possible applications. Since, in the Wachandi cere many, the libido is bound to its object-sexuality-it will carT) at least part of this function into the new form as an essential characteristic. The result is that an analogous object is "in. vested" and takes the place of the one thrust into the background. The ideal example of such an object is the nurturing earth-mother. (PI. Xlva; cf. also fig. 1.) The psychology of the presexual stage accounts for her nourishing character, and sexuality for her most typical form of worship, the hieros gamos. From this arise the age-old symbols of agriculture. In the work of tilling and sowing the fields hunger and incest intermingle. The ancient cults of Mother Earth saw in this the fertilization of the mother. But the aim of the action is to bring forth the fruits of the field, and it is magical rather than sexual. Here the regression leads to a reactivation of the mother as the goal of desire, this time as a symbol not of sex but of the giver of nourishment. 
It is just possible that we owe the discovery of fire to some such regression to the presexual stage, where the model of rhythmic activity can co-operate effectively. The libido, forced into regression by the checking of instinct, reactivates the infantile boring and provides it with objective material to work onfittingly called "material" because the object at this stage is the mother (mater). As I have pointed out above, the act of boring requires only the strength and perseverance of an adult man and suitable "material" in order to generate fire. Consequently, 32 Known as the "factor of extensity" in the older physics. Cf. von Hartmann, Die Weltanschauung deT modern en Physik, p. 5. 
159 

Ill:NltlVL" V.r lK'/\'I""llVK1Vi./\.iiVl". i VVu 
the production of fire may have originally occurred as the objective expression of a quasi-masturbatory activity analogous to the aforementioned case of masturbatory boring. Though we can never hope to advance any real proof of our contention, it is at least thinkable that some traces of these first exercises in fire-making may have been preserved. I have succeeded in finding a passage in a monument of Indian literature which describes this conversion of libido into fire-making. It occurs in the Brihadaranyaka U panishad: 33 
He (A tman 34) was as big as a man and woman joined together; he divided himself into two, and thus husband and wife were born .... 35 He joined himself to her, and thus men were born. 
She thought: "How should he lie with me after having produced me? I will hide myself." She became a cow, he became a bull; they joined and cattle were born. She became a mare, he a stallion; she became a she-ass, he an ass; they joined and the hoofed animals were born. She became a she-goat, he a goat; sbe became a ewe, he a ram; they joined and goats and sheep were born. Thus he created everything down to the ants, male and female .... 
Then he knew: "I am this creation, for I produced it all from myself." Such was creation. He who possesses this knowledge creates his own being in that creation. 
Thereupon he rubbed thus [holding his hands before his mouth). 
From his mouth, the fire-hole (yoni), and from his hands, he brought forth fire.36 
33 The Upanishads expound the theology of the Vedic writings and contain the speculative, theosophical part of the teachings. The Vedic writings are mostly of very uncertain age, and since for a long time they were handed down only orally, they may date back to the very remote past. 
34 The primordial universal being, a concept which in psychological terms coincides with that of the libido. 
35 The atman is thus thought of as originally bisexual or hermaphroditic. The world was created by desire: cf. Brih. Up. I, 4, 1-3: "In the beginning this world was Self alone in the form of a Person (purusha). He looked round and saw nothing but himself .... He became afraid; therefore one who is alone is afraid. He thought: 'Why should I be afraid, since there is nothing but myself? ... .' He had no joy; therefore one who is alone has nO joy. He desired a second." Then follows the description of his division into two, quoted above, Plato's idea of the world-soul comes very close to this Indian image: "It had no need of eyes, for there was nothing outside it to be seen; nor of ears, for there was nothing outside it to be heard .... Nothing went out from or came into it anywhere, for there was nothing." (Timaeus, 33, trans. based on Corn ford, p. 55·) 
36 Brih. Up. 1,4,3-6, trans. based op. HUme, pp. 81-8~. 
16<;> 

2~8 
~29 
230 

Ill. THE 'tRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
I once observed a year-old baby making a very peculiar gesture: it held one hand before its mouth and kept rubbing it with the other. It lost this habit after some months. Such cases show that there is some justification for interpreting a mythologem like the above as being based on a very early infantile gesture. 
The baby's gesture is interesting in another respect, too: it lays emphasis on the mouth, which at this early age still has an exclusively nutritive significance. The pleasure and satisfaction it finds in feeding is localized in the mouth, but to interpret this pleasure as sexual is quite unjustified. Feeding is a genuine activity, satisfying in itself, and because it is a vital necessity nature has here put a premium on pleasure. The mouth soon begins to develop another significance as the organ of speech. The extreme importance of speech doubles the significance of the mouth in small children. The rhythmic activities it carries out express a concentration of emotional forces, i.e., of libido, at this point. Thus the mouth (and to a lesser degree the anus) becomes the prime place of origin. According to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the most important discovery ever made by primitive man, the discovery of fire, came out of the mouth. As we might expect, there are texts which draw a parallel between fire and speech. The Aitareya Upanishad says: 
Then he drew forth a Person (purusha) from the waters and shaped him. He brooded upon him, and when he had brooded him forth, a mouth split open like an egg. From the mouth came speech, and from speech fire.37 [Cf. pI. xmb.] 
Here, then, speech becomes fire, but a little later on (2, 4) we are told that fire becomes speech. There is a similar connection between the two in Brihadaranyaka U panishad: 
"Yajfiavalkya, what is the light of man?" 
"The sun is his light," he answered. "It is by the light of the sun that a man rests, goes forth, does his work and returns." 
"Quite so, Yajfiavalkya. But when the sun is set, what then is the light of man?" 
"The moon is his light," he answered. "It is by the light of the moon that a man rests; goes forth, does his work and returns." 
37 I. 3-4. trans. based on Hume. p. ~94. 
161 

233 
234 
SYMBOL~ OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
"Quite so, Yajfiavalkya. But when the sun is set, and the moon is set, what then is the light of man?" 
"Fire is his light," he answered. "It is by the light of the fire that a man rests, goes forth, does his work and returns." 
"Quite so, Yajfiavalkya. But when the sun is set, and the moon is set, and the fire has gone out, what then is the light of man?" 
"Speech is his light," he answered. "It is by the light of speech that a man rests, goes forth, does his work and returns." 
"Quite so, Yajfiavalkya. But when the sun is set, and the moon is set, and the fire has gone out, and speech is hushed, what then is the light of man?" 
"Self is his light," he answered. "It is by the light of the Self that a man rests, goes forth, does his work and returns." 38 
	l!31 	This association of mouth, fire, and speech is not as strange 
as it would seem: we speak of a man being "fired" or "inflamed" by another's words, of a "fiery" speech, "burning words," ete. In the language of the Old Testament mouth and fire are frequently connected, as in II Samuel 22: 9: "There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth. ... " Isaiah 30: 27: "The name of the Lord cometh from afar, burning with his anger ... his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire." Psalm 29: 7 (RV): "The voice of the Lord scattereth flames of fire." Jeremiah 23; 29: 
"Is not my word like as a fire?" And in Revelation 11; 5 fire proceeds out of the mouth of the two prophetic witnesses. 
	232 	Again and again fire is called "devouring," "consuming," a 
reminder of the function of the mouth, as in Ezekiel15; 4: "It is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned." Deuteronomy 4: 24: "For the Lord thy Cod is a consuming fire, even a jealous Cod." Perhaps the best-known example is Acts 2: 3-4: "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues ['YAwCTCTat] like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Chost, and began to speak with other tongues ['YAwCTCTats], as the Spirit gave them utterance." The 'YAwCTCTa of the fire caused the glossolalia of the apostles. In a negative sense the Epistle of James 3: 6 says: "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on 38 Trans. based on Hume. p. 133. 
16~ 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
fire of hel1." Proverbs 16: 27 says likewise: "An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire." The dragons or horses of the Apocalypse (Rev. 9: 17) breathe forth fire and smoke and brimstone, and as for Leviathan (Job 41 ; 19f.): "Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire 
leap out." 
The connection of the mouth with fire and speech is in- 
dubitable. Another fact to be considered is that the etymological dictionaries connect the Indo-European root * bhii with the idea of 'bright,' 'shining.' This root is found in Cr. 1>aw, 1>o.L/lw, 1>aos; in aIr. bim) 'white'; and in the C. bohnen) 'to polish, make shining.' But the homonymous root * bha also signifies 'speaking': it is found in Skr. bhan) 'to speak'; in Armen. ban) 'word'; in C. Bann) bannen) 'to ban, put a spell on'; in Cr. 
1>o.-p,L, ~1>o.p, 1>ans, Lat. fa-ri) fatum. 
The root la) 'to sound, to bark,' occurs in Skr. las lasati) 'to resound, reverberate,' and in las ldsati) 'to radiate, shine.' 
	235 	A similar archaic fusion of meanings occurs in a certain class 
of Egyptian words derived from the cognate roots ben and bel) duplicated into benben and belbel. The original meaning of these words was 'to burst forth, emerge, swell, well out,' with the associated idea of bubbling, boiling, roundness. Belbel) accompanied by the obelisk sign, meant a source of light. The obelisk itself had several names: teshenu) men) benben) and more rarely berber and belbel.39 The Indo-European root *vel) meaning 'to wave about like fire,' occurs in Skr. ulunka) 'blaze,' Cr. Fo.A~o., Att. aMo., 'warmth of the sun,' Coth. vulan) 'undulate,' OHC. and MHC. Walm) 'warmth.' The related IndoEuropean root *velko) 'to lighten, glow,' occurs in Skr. ulka) 'firebrand,' Cr. FEAxapos, 'Vulcan.' The same root "'vel also means 'to sound'; in Skr. vani) 'tone, song, music'; Czech volati) 'to call.' The root *sveno occurs in Skr. svan) svdnati) 'to sound,' Zend qanafit) Lat. sonare) OIran. semn) Welsh sa in) Lat. sonus) OE. svinsian. The related root *svenos) 'noise,' Occurs in Ved. svdnas) Lat. sonor) sonorus. A further related root is *svonos) OIran. son) 'word.' The root *sve(n), locative *sveni) dative *sunei) means 'sun'; in Zend qeng (cf. above, *sveno) 39 Cf. Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, pp. 255£., and the Dictionnaire hitfroglYPhique. 
163 

237 
236 
SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
Zend qanafit); Goth. sun-na, sunno.40 Although the stars are only perceived by their light, we still talk of the music of the spheres and celestial harmony, just as Pythagoras did. Goethe opens his "Prologue in Heaven" in the same way: 
The day-star, sonorous as of old, Goes his predestined way along, 
And round his path is thunder rolled, While sister-spheres join rival song.41 
Again, in Part Il: 
Hearken to the storm of hoursl Ringing out for spirits' ears 
Now the new-born day appears. 
Gates of rock grind back asunder, Phoebus comes with wheels of thunder, Light brings tumult in his train. Drums and trumpets far resounding, Dazzling. deafening, dumbfounding, A din the ears can scarce sustain. 
Into bells of blossom creep, 
Lie there quietly, as in sleep, 
Into rock and under leaf: 
If it strikes you, you are deaf.42 
Nor should we forget the verses of Holderlin: 
Where are you? Drunken with all your glory My soul dreams; yet even now I hearken, 
As full of golden tones the radiant sun-youth Raises his evening song on the heavenly lyre To the echoing woods and hills .... 43 
These images point back to the sun-god Apollo, whose lyre marks him out as the divine musician. The fusion of sound, 40 The word swan might also be mentioned here, because the swan sings when about to die. The swan, eagle, and phoenix occur in alchemy as related symbols. They signify the sun and thus the philosophical gold. Cf. also the verse from 
Heine (trans. by Todhunter): 
A swan on the lake sings lonely, 
He oars himself to and fro, Then faint and fainter singing, Sinks to his grave below. 
41 Trans. by Wayne, p. 39· 
42 Trans. based on MacNeice, p. 159, and on unpubl. trans. by Philip Wayne. 
43 "Sunset." [CL trans. by Hamburger, p. 97·) 
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238 
239 
240 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
speech, light, and fire is expressed in an almost physiologic way in the phenomenon of "colour-hearing," i.e., the perceptic of the tonal quality of colours and the chromatic quality ( musical tones. This leads one to think that there must be a pr conscious identity between them: the two phenomena ha, something in common despite their real differences. It is prol ably no accident that the two most important discoveries whic distinguish man from all other living beings, namely speec and the use of fire, should have a common psychic background Both are products of psychic energy, of libido or mana. I1 Sanskrit there is a term which expresses in all its nuances thl preconscious situation I have suggested. This is the word tejas and it combines the following meanings: 
1.	Sharpness, cutting edge. 
2.	Fire, brightness, light, ardour, heat. 
3.	Healthy appearance, beauty. 
4.	The fiery and colour-producing faculty of the human organism 
(located in the bile). 
7.	Strength, energy, vital force. 
8.	Passion. 
9.	Spiritual and magical power; influence, position, dignity. 8. Semen.44 
T ejas, therefore, describes the psychological situation covered by the word "libido." It really denotes subjective intensity. Anything potent, any content highly charged with energy, therefore has a wide range of symbolic meanings. This is obvious enough in the case of language, which is capable of expressing practically anything. But it may not be out of place to say a few words about the symbolism of fire. 
The Sanskrit word for fire is agnis (Lat. ignis 45), personified as Agni, the god of fire, a divine mediator (cf. pI. xmb) whose symbolism has certain affinities with Christian ideas. 
An Iranian name for fire is Nairyosagha, 'masculine word: (Cf. the Indian Narasamsa, 'wish of men.' 46) Max Miiller says of Agni: 
It was a familiar idea with the Brahmans to look upon the fire both as the subject and the object of a sacrifice. The fire embraced the 44 [CL Macdonell, Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 112, s.v. "tegas."-EDITORS.] 
45 Connected with ag-ilis, 'agile: See Max Muller, Origin and Growth of Religion, 
	p.212. 	46 Spiegel, Eriinische Altertumskunde, U, p. 49. 
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SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
offering, and was thus a kind of priest; it carried it to the gods, and was thus a kind of mediator between gods and men. But the fire represented also something divine, a god to whom honour was due, and thus it became both the subject and the object of the sacrifice. Hence the idea that Agni sacrifices himself, that he offers a sacrifice to himself, and likewise that he offers himself as a sacrifice.47 
	241 	The affinity between this line of thought and the Christian 
symbol is obvious. Krishna expresses the same idea in the Bhagavad Gita: 
All's then Godl 
The sacrifice is Brahm, the ghee and grain Are Brahm, the fire is Brahm, the flesh it eats Is Brahm, and unto Brahm attaineth he Who, in such office, meditates on Brahm.48 
	242 	The wise Diotima in Plato's Symposium has a rather differ- 
ent conception of the divine messenger and mediator. She teaches Socrates (ch. 23) that Eras is "the intermediary between mortals and immortals ... a mighty daemon, dear Socrates; for everything daemonic is the intermediary between God and man." His function is to "interpret and convey messages to the gods from men and to men from the gods, prayers and sacrifices from the one, and commands and rewards from the other, thus bridging the gap between them, so that by his mediation the universe is at one with itself." Diotima gives an excellent description of Eros: "He is bold and forward and strenuous, always devising tricks like a cunning huntsman; he yearns after knowledge and is full of resource and is a lover of wisdom all his life, a skilful magician, an alchemist, a true sophist. He is neither mortal nor immortal; but on one and the same day he will live and flourish (when things go well with him), and also meet his death; and then come to life again through the force of his father's nature. Yet all that he wins is forever slipping away from him." 49 
	243 	In the Avesta and in the Vedas, fire is the messenger of the 
gods. In Christian mythology, too, there are points of contact 
47 Max Muller, Introduction to the Science at Religion, pp. 164-65 p.. 48 In Book IV, trans. by Arnold, pp. 25-26. 
49 Symposium 202 E, 203 D - E, trans. by Hamilton, pp. Slf., modified. 166 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
with the Agni myth. Daniel 3: 24f. speaks of the three m( in the burning fiery furnace: 
Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up i haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did we not cast thn men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unl the king, True, 0 king. 
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in tt midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fOUr! is like the Son of God. 
	244 	The Biblia pauperum (1471) makes the following commen 
"Ve read in the third chapter of the book of the prophet Daniel th, Nabuchodonosor, the King of Babylon, caused three men to t placed in a glowing furnace, and that the king came to the furna< and looked in, and saw with the three a fourth, who was like the So of God. The three signify for us the Holy Trinity of the person, an the fourth the unity of being. Thus Christ in- his transfiguratio signified the Trinity of the person and the unity of being. 
	245 	According to this interpretation the legend of the thre 
men in the furnace is a magical procedure during which "fourth" is produced. The fiery furnace, like the fiery tripod i Faust) is a mother-symbol. From the tripod come Paris an Helen, the royal pair of alchemy, and in popular tradition chi dren are baked in the oven. The alchemical athanor, or meltin~ pot, signifies the body, while the alembic or cucurbita) th Hermetic vessel, represents the uterus. The "fourth" in the fier furnace appears like a son of God made visible in the fire.f J ehovah himself is a fire. Isaiah IQ: 17 (RSV) says of the saviou of Israel: "And the light of Israel will become a fire, and hi Holy One a flame." A hymn of Ephraem the Syrian says c Christ: "Thou who art all fire, have pity on me." This view i based on the apocryphal saying of our Lord: "He who is nea unto me is near unto the fire." 
	246 	Agni is the sacrificial flame, the sacrificer and the sacrificec 
Just as Christ left behind his redeeming blood, a true r/iapfJ.v.Ko aOavauLas, in the wine, so Agni is the soma) the holy drink 0 
50 The alchemists, too, were interested in this story and regarded the "fourth" a the filius Philosophorum. Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pp. 333ff. 
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SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
inspiration, the mead of immortality.51 Soma and fire are identical in Vedic literature. The ancient Hindus saw fire both as a symbol of Agni and as an emanation of the inner libido-fire, and for them the same psychic dynamism was at work in the intoxicating drink ("fire-water," Soma-Agni as rain and fire). The Vedic definition of soma as "seminal fluid" 52 confirms this view. The "somatic" significance of Agni has its parallel in the Christian interpretation of the Eucharistic Blood as the body of Christ. 
	247 	Soma is also the "nourishing drink." Its mythological char- 
acteristics coincide with those of fire, and so both are united in Agni. The drink of immortality, Amrita, was stirred by the Hindu gods like the fire. (PI. xv.) 
	248 	So far our exposition has been based on the pramantha com- 
ponent of the Agni sacrifice, and we have concerned ourselves with only one meaning of the word manthiimi or mathniimi) namely with that which expresses the idea of rubbing. But as Kuhn has shown, the word can also mean 'to tear or break off,' 'to snatch,' and also 'to rob.' 53 In his view this meaning is apparent even in the early Vedic texts. Legend always conceives the discovery of fire as a robbery) and to that extent it is akin to the widespread motif of the "treasure hard to attain." In many myths fire-making is something forbidden, a criminal act of usurpation which can only be accomplished by cunning or violence, but mostly by cunning. 54 The religious laws of the ancient Hindus threatened with severe penalties anyone who prepared fire in an incorrect manner. It is the custom in the Catholic Church to light a new fire at Easter. So, even in the accident, fire-making is an element in a religious mystery, which testifies to its symbolical and ambiguous character. The rules of the ritual must be scrupulously observed if it is to have its intended magical effect. Generally the rite has a prophylactic, apotropaic significance, and when incorrectly performed or used 51 This side of Agni points to Dionysus, who exhibits parallels both with Christian and with Indian mythology. 
52 "Whatever is liquid he created from semen, and that is soma." Brih. Up. 1,4,6. 53 The question is whether this meaning was only a secondary development. Kuhn seems to assume this; he says (Mythol. Studien, I, p. 18): "But, together with the meaning which the root manth had already developed, there also grew up in the Vedas, as a natural development of the procedure, the idea of tearing off or 
	plucking." 	54 For examples see Frobenius, Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes. 
168 

Ill. THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIBIDO 
may conjure up the very danger it was intended to avert. Spec and fire-making represent primitive man's victory over brutish unconsciousness and subsequently became power magical devices for overcoming the ever-present "daemon forces lurking in the unconscious. Both these applications libido require attention, concentration, and inner discipli: thereby facilitating a further development of consciousness. ( the other hand incorrect performance and use of the rite cat a retrograde movement of the libido, a regression whi threatens to reproduce the earlier, instinctual, and unconscio state. The danger lies in those well-known "perils of the soul' a splitting of the personality ("loss of a soul") and reduction consciousness, both of which automatically increase the pow of the unconscious. The consequences of this are a serio danger not only for primitives; in civilized man, too, they m give rise to psychic disturbances, states of possession, and psych epidemics. 
	249 	The blocking of libido leads to an accumulation of i 
stinctuality and, in consequence, to excesses and aberrations I all kinds. Among them, sexual disturbances are fairly frequen as we might expect. A particularly instructive example is tl psychology of incendiarism: incendiarism is really a regressi, act of fire-making, and in certain cases it is combined wit masturbation. Schmid 55 tells of an imbecile peasant youth wh started numerous fires. On one occasion he aroused suspicion b standing in the door of a house with his hands in his trouse: pockets, gazing with delight at the conflagration. Later, unde examination.- he admitted that he always masturbated whil enjoying the spectacle of the fires he had started. 
	250 	The preparation of fire is an immemorial custom, harmles 
enough in itself, which soon ceased to have anything very my~ terious about it. But there was always a tendency to preparl fire in a mysterious ceremonial manner on special occasionsjust as with ritual eating and drinking-and to do it accordinl to prescribed rules from which no one dared to differ. Thi ritual serves to remind us of the original numinosity of fire making, but apart from that it has no practical significance. Th( anamnesis of fire-making is on a level with the recollection 01 the ancestors among primitives and of the gods at a more civi. 55 "Zur Psychologie der Brandstifter:' p. 80. 
169 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
lized stage. From the psychological point of view the ceremony has the significance of a meaningful institution, inasmuch as it represents a clearly defined procedure for canalizing the libido. It has, in fact, the fUf'ctional value of a paradigm, and its purpose is to show us how we should act when the libido gets blocked. What we call the "blocking of libido" is, for the primitive, a hard and concrete fact: his life ceases to flow, things lose their glamour, plants, animals, and men no longer prosper. The ancient Chinese philosophy of the I Ching devised some brilliant images for this state of affairs. Modern man, in the same situation, experiences a standstill ("I am stuck"), a loss of energy and enjoyment ("the zest-libido-has gone out of life"), or a depression. One frequently has to tell the patient what is happening to him, for modern man's powers of introspection leave much to be desired. 1£, even today, the new fire is kindled at Eastertide, it is in commemoration of the redemptive and saving significance of the first fire-boring. In this way man wrested a secret from nature-the Promethean theft of fire. He made himself guilty of an unlawful intervention, incorporating a fragment of the age-old unconscious into the darkness of his mind. With this theft he appropriated something precious and offended against the gods. Anyone who knows the primitive's fear of innovations and their unforeseen consequences can imagine the uncertainty and uneasy conscience which such a discovery would arouse. This primordial experience finds an echo in the widespread motif of robbery (sun-cattle of Geryon, apples of the Hesperides, herb of immortality). And it is worth remembering that in the cult of Diana at Aricia only he could become her priest who plucked the golden bough from the sacred grove of the goddess. 
17° 

IV 
THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
	251 	The finest of all symbols of the libido is the human figure, 
conceived as a demon or hero. Here the symbolism leaves the objective, material realm of astral and meteorological images and takes on human form, changing into a figure who passes from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to joy, and, like the sun, now stands high at the zenith and now is plunged into darkest night, only to rise again in new splendour. 1 Just as the sun, by its own motion and in accordance with its own inner law, climbs from morn till noon, crosses the meridian and goes its downward way towards evening, leaving its radiance behind it, and finally plunges into all-enveloping night, so man sets his course by immutable laws and, his journey over, sinks into darkness, to rise again in his children and begin the cycle anew. The symbolic transition from sun to man is easily made, and the third and last creation of Miss Miller's follows this pattern. She calls it "Chiwantopel, A hypnagogic drama," and gives us the following information concerning its origin: 
After an evening of trouble and anxiety, I had gone to bed at half past eleven. I felt restless; unable to sleep although very tired. I had the impression of being in a receptive mood. There was no light in the room. I closed my eyes, and had the feeling of waiting for something that was about to happen. Then I felt a great relaxation come over me, and I remained as completely passive as possible. Lines, sparks, and spirals of fire passed before my eyes, symptoms of nervousness and ocular fatigue, followed by a kaleidoscopic and fragmentary review of recent trivial events. 
	252 	The reader will share my regret that we cannot know the 
cause of her worry and anxiety. It would have been of great 1 Hence the beautiful name of the sun-hero Gilgamesh, "The Man of Joy and Sorrow," in Jcnsen, Das Gilgamesch-Epos. 
171 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
importance for what follows to have information on this point. This gap in our knowledge is the more regrettable because, between the first poem (1898) and the fantasy now to be discussed (1902), four whole years have passed. All information is lacking regarding this period, during which the problem was assuredly not slumbering in the unconscious. Maybe this lack has its advantages, in that our interest in the general validity of the fantasy now struggling to be born is not obscured by any sympathetic concern for the personal fate of the author. This obviates the difficulty which often prevents the doctor, in his daily 

Fig. 17. The first three labours of Heracles Classical sarcoPhagus relief 
work, from turning his eyes away from the wearisome mass of petty detail to those wider relationships where every neurotic conflict is seen to be part of human fate as a ·whole. 
	253 	The state of mind depicted by our author is very much like 
that which usually precedes a case of intentional somnambulism,2 and has often been described by mediums. A certain willingness to give ear to these faint nocturnal voices must be there, otherwise these subtle and hardly perceptible inner experiences will pass unnoticed. We can discern in this listening attitude an inward-flowing current of libido, leading towards a still invisible and mysterious goal. It is as if the libido had suddenly discovered, in the depths of the unconscious, an object which exercises a powerful attraction. As our life is directed 2 Cf. the researches of Silberer, "Phantasie und Mythos," pp. 513ft 
172 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
outwards and does not normally allow of such introversions, W( have to suppose a rather exceptional condition, for instance (i lack of external objects, which forces the individual to seek Cl substitute in his own psyche. It is hard to believe that this teeming world is too poor to provide an object for human loveit offers boundless opportunities to everyone. It is rather the inability to love which robs a person of these opportunities. The world is empty only to him who does not know how to direct his libido towards things and people, and to render them alive and beautiful. What compels us to create a substitute from within ourselves is not an external lack, but our own inability to include anything outside ourselves in our love. Certainly the difficulties and adversities of the struggle for existence may oppress us, yet even the worst conditions need not hinder love; on the contrary, they often spur us on to greater efforts. Real difficulties alone will never drive the libido back to the point where a neurosis arises, because the conflict which is the precondition for every neurosis is lacking. Only a resistance, which opposes its obstinate "won't" to the "will," is capable of producing a regression that may become the starting-point for a pathogenic disturbance. Resistance to loving produces the inability to love, or else that inability acts as a resistance. Just as the libido may be compared to a steady stream pouring its waters into the world of reality, so a resistance, dynamically considered, resembles, not a rock that juts up from the river-bed and causes the stream to flow round it, but a flowing back towards the source. Part of the psyche really wants the external object, but another part of it strives back to the subjective world, where the airy and lightly built palaces of fantasy beckon. We can take this dichotomy of the human will, for which Bleuler has coined the term "ambitendency," 3 as a constant factor, bearing in mind that the most primitive motor impulses are essentially antithetical, since, even in a simple act like stretching, the flexor muscles must be innervated. Normally, however, this ambitendency never leads to the inhibition or prevention of the intended act, but is absolutely necessary for its co-ordination and execution. If, from this harmony of delicately balanced opposites, there should arise any resistance to the act, then it must be due to an abnormal plus or minus 3 See Bleuler, "Zur Theorie des schizophrenen Negativismus." 
173 

254 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
quantity on one side or the other. The resistance springs from the intervention of this third factor. This is true also of the dichotomy of the will which is the cause of so many human problems. The abnormal "third factor" loosens the paired opposites which are normally bound tightly together and makes them appear as separate tendencies, as a genuine "won't" and "will" that get in each other's way.4 Harmony thus turns into disharmony. This is not the place to investigate where the unknown third factor comes from and what it is. Freud sees the root complex in the incest problem, since in his view the libido that regresses to the parents produces not only symbols, but symptoms and situations that can only be regarded as incestuous. This is the source of all those incestuous relationships with which mythology swarms. The reason this regression is so easy seems to lie in the specifIC inertia of the libido, which will relinquish no object of the past, but would like to hold it fast forever. Stripped of its incestuous covering, Nietzsche's "sacrilegious backward grasp" is only a metaphor for a reversion to the original passive state where the libido is arrested in the objects of childhood. This inertia, as La Rochefoucauld says, is also a passion: 
Of all the Passions we are exposed to, none is more concealed from our Knowledge than Idleness. It is the most violent, and the most mischievous of any, and yet at the same time we are never sensible of its Violence, and the damage we sustain by it is very seldom seen. If we consider its Power carefully, it will be found, upon all Occa· sions, to reign absolute over all our Sentiments, our Interests, and our Pleasures. This is a Remora that can stop the largest Ships, and a Calm of worse Consequence in our Affairs, than any Rocks, and Storms. The Ease and Quiet of Sloth is a secret Charm upon the Soul, to suspend its most eager Pursuits, and shake its most peremptory Resolutions. In a Word, to give a true image of this Passion, we must say that it is a supposed Felicity of the Soul, that makes her easie under all her Losses, and supplies the Place of all her Enjoyments and Advantages.5 
This dangerous passion is what lies hidden beneath the hazardous mask of incest. It confronts us in the guise of the 
4 Cf. Krishna's exhortation to the hesitant Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: "But thOll, 1;>e free of the pairs of opposites!" (Trans. by Arnold, p. 13.) 
5 La Rochefollcauld, Moral Maxims, No. DLX, p. 139. 
174 

255 
256 
257 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
Terrible Mother 6 (pI. XVI) cf. also pI. XXXVIII), and is inde, the mother of innumerable evils, not the least of which a neurotic disturbances. For out of the miasmas arising from t] stagnant pools of libido are born those baneful phantasmagori which so veil reality that all adaptation becomes impossibJ However, we shall not enquire further into the origin of ince fantasies; the bare mention of the incest problem must suffic Here we are concerned only with the question whether the I sistance which, in the case of our author, led to a regressio signifies a conscious external difficulty or not. If it were an e temal difficulty, then the libido would be violently dammt back, and would produce a flood of fantasies which could be be described as plans to overcome the obstacle: ideas that te with solutions, perhaps even some hard thinking which migl lead to anything rather than a hypnagogic poem. The passi, state described above does not fit in with the idea of an extern; obstacle, but, through its very acquiescence, points to a tendene that scorns real solutions and prefers a fantastic substitute. I the last resort, therefore, we must be dealing with an intern, conflict, somewhat after the style of those earlier experienCl which resulted in the first two unconscious creations. We ar thus forced to conclude that the external object simply cannc be loved, because an overwhelming proportion of the libid prefers an internal object that rises up from the unconscious 3 a substitute for the missing reality. 
The visionary phenomena produced by the first stage c introversion can be classed among the well-known symptoms of hypnagogic vision. They provide the basis for the actua visions or "self-perceptions" of the libido in the form of symboll 
Miss Miller continues: 
Then an impression that something was on the point of being corn municated to me. It seemed as if these words were repeating them selves in me-"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth - Open thO! mine ears." 
This passage describes the underlying intention very clearly the word "communication" (communique) is actually a corn mon expression in mediurilistic circles. The Biblical words con 6 Cf. the following chapters. 
7 Cf. Muller, Ober die Phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen. 
175 

258 

;:>rlva'UL;:> ur lKAN;:>l'UKlVlAUUN; TWO 
tain an invocation or "prayer," that is, a wish addressed to God, a concentration of libido on the God-image. The prayer refers to I Samuel 3 : df., where Samuel was called three times by God during the night, but thought it was Eli calling him, until Eh told him that it was God, and that if he was called again, he should answer: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." The dreamer uses these words in the opposite sense, in order to direct her wishes, her libido, into the depths of the unconscious. 
We know that however much individuals differ from one another in the content of their conscious minds, they become all the more alike when regarded from the standpoint of the unconscious. The psychotherapist cannot fail to be impressed when he realizes how uniform the unconscious images are despite their surface richness. Differences only arise through individuation-a fact which provides the psychological justification for an essential portion of the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Car us, and von Hartmann, whose views have as their psychic basis the obvious uniformity of the unconscious. The unconscious consists, among other things, of remnants of the undifferentiated archaic psyche, including its animal stages. The reactions and products of the animal psyche have a uniformity and constancy of which we seem able to discover only sporadic traces in man. Man seems to us far more individual than the animals. This may perhaps be a delusion, since we have in us a convenient tendency to discern differences mainly in the things which interest us. Psychological adaptation makes this inevitable, for without the minute differentiation of impressions all adaptation would be impossible. So strong is this tendency that we have, in fact, the greatest difficulty in recognizing the common connection between the things we have to do with in everyday life. It is much easier to recognize the connection in things that are remote from us. For instance, it is almost impossible for a European to distinguish at first between the faces in a Chinese crowd, although the Chinese have just as tndividual a physiognomy as we Europeans; but what their faces have in common is much more evident to the outsider than their individual differences. If we live among the Chinese, the impression of uniformity gradually disappears, and in the end they too become individuals. Individuality is one of those conditioned factors which are greatly overrated on account of their 
176 

259 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
practical importance; it does not come into the category of t] self-evident, universal truths upon which a science musl founded. The individual content of consciousness is there the most unfavourable object imaginable for psychology, cisely because it has differentiated the universal to the pain unrecognizability. The essence of conscious processes is ada tion, which takes place in a series of particulars. The unl scious, on the other hand, is universal: it not only bi individuals together into a nation or race, but unites them" the men of the past and with their psychology. Thus, by rea of its supra-individual universality,S the unconscious is prime object of any real psychology that claims to be m than psychophysics. 
Man as an individual is a very suspicious phenomer whose right to exist could be questioned by the biologist, sil from that point of view he is significant only as a collect creature or as a particle in the mass. The cultural point of vi gives man a meaning apart from the mass, and this, in the cou of centuries, led to the development of personality and the c of the hero. The efforts of rationalistic theology to preserve 1 personal Jesus as the last and most precious remnant of a div ity whom we are no longer capable of imagining, are quite keeping with this tendency. In this respect the Catholic Chm proved more adaptable, since she met the universal need fOl visible hero by recognizing God's vicar upon earth. The cc crete reality of religious figures assists the canalization libido into the equivalent symbols, provided that the worsh of them does not get stuck at the outward object. But even if does, it at least remains bound to the representative hum; figure and loses its original primitive form, even though it do not attain the desired symbolic form. This need for a visib reality has been secretly preserved in a certain personalist brand of Protestant theology which insists on the historic Jesus. Not that men have ever loved the visible God: they ( not love him for what he appears to be, a mere man, 'becau: if the pious want to love humanity they have only to turn 1 their neighbours or their enemies. The religious figure cann( be a mere man, for it has to represent what it actually is, name: the totality of all those primordial images which express tl 8 In my later works, I therefore speak of the "collective" unconscious. 
177 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO "extraordinarily potent," always and everywhere. What we seek in visible human form is not man, but the superman, the hero or god, that quasi-human being who symbolizes the ideas, forms, and forces which gTip and mould the soul. These, so far as psychological experience is concerned, are the archetypal contents of the (collective) unconscious, the archaic heritage of humanity, the legacy left behind by all differentiation and development and bestowed upon all men like sunlight and air. But in loving this inheritance they love that which is common to all; they turn back to the mother of humanity, to the psyche, which was before consciousness existed, and in this way they make contact with the source and regain something of that mysterious and irresistible power which comes from the feeling of being part of the whole. It is the problem of Antaeus, who could only keep his giant strength through contact with mother earth. This temporary withdrawal into oneself seems, within certain limits, to have a favourable effect upon the psychic well-being of the individual. As one would expect, the two fundamental mechanisms of the psyche, extraversion and introversion, are also to a large extent the normal and appropriate ways of reacting to complexes-extraversion as a means of escaping from the complex into reality, introversion as a means of detaching oneself from external reality through the complex. 
	260 	The story in I Samuel 3: Iff. illustrates how the libido can 
be directed inwards: the invocation expresses this introversion, and the explicit expectation that God will speak empties the conscious mind of activity and transfers it to the divine being constellated by the invocation, who, from the empirical point of view, must be regarded as a primordial image. It is a fact of experience that all archetypal contents have a certain autonomy, since they appear spontaneously and can often exercise an overwhelming compulsion. There is, therefore, nothing intrinsically absurd about the expectation that "God" will take over the activity and spontaneity of the conscious mind, for the primordial images are quite capable of doing precisely this. 
	261 	Now that we have informed ourselves of the general pur- 
pose of the prayer, we are prepared to hear more about the visions of our dreamer. After the prayer, "the head of a sphinx in an Egyptian setting" appeared, only to disappear again immediately after. At this point the dreamer was disturbed, and 
178 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
woke up for a moment. The vision recalls the fantasy of th Egyptian statue mentioned in the beginning, whose rigid ge1 tu re is entirely in place here as a functional phenomenon, th, light stages of hypnosis being technically known as "engourdisse ment" (stiffening). The word "sphinx" suggests "riddle," al enigmatic creature who propounds riddles, like the Sphinx 0 Oedipus, ;md stands on the threshold of one's fate as thougl symbolically announcing the inevitable. The Sphinx is a semi theriomorphic representation of the mother-imago, or ratheJ of the Terrible Mother, who has left numerous traces in mythol ogy. I shall be told that nothing except the word "Sphinx' justifies our allusion to the Sphinx of Oedipus. But, in th( absence of any context, an individual interpretation of th( vision is impossible. The "Egyptian" fantasy hinted at in Part 1 (par. 52) is far too vague to be used here. Therefore, in ordel to understand the vision at all, we have to turn boldly to the ethnological material, on the assumption that the unconscious coins its symbols today in much the same way as it did in the remote past. With regard to the Sphinx, I would remind the reader of what I said in Part I (par. 24) about theriomorphic representations of the libido. (Cf. pI. Iva.) They are well known to the doctor from the dreams and fantasies of his patients, where instinct is often represented as a bull, horse, dog, etc. One of my patients, who had questionable relations with women, and who began the treatment with the fear that I would forbid him his adventures, dreamt that I had very skilfully speared a strange animal, half pig, half crocodile, to the wall. Dreams are full of these theriomorphic representations of libido. Hybrids and monsters, like the one found here, are not at all infrequent. Bertschinger 9 has given us a series of illustrations in which the lower (animal) half in particular is represented theriomorphically. The libido so represented is the "animal" instinct 10 that has got repressed. In the above-m en9 "Illustrierte HaIluzinationen," pp, 6gff, 
10 In the Middle Ages, the sphinx was regarded as an "emblem" of pleasure. Thus Andrea Alciati says in his Emblemata (p. 801) that the sphinx signifies "corporis voluptas, primo quidem aspectu blandiens, sed asperrima, tristisque, postquam gustaveris. De qua sic ,-, . meretricius ardor egregiis iuvenes sevocat a studiis" (the pleasure of the body, attractive indeed at first sight, but very bitter and sad after you have tasted it. And, , . [name corrupt] says this about it: , the love of whores lures young men away from lofty studies). 
179 

...., ••...•. "".l"II..l.'U.&. "' .•. , .•.•••.. ..-11. •••.••.••...•••. , ••••.•• '" 
tioned case, one asks oneself in some bewilderment where the repression can lie in such a man, since he obviously lives out his instincts as much as possible. But we must remember that sex is not the only instinct, nor can instinct be identified outright with sex. It is therefore conceivable that my patient was damaging his instinct precisely through his manifest lack of sexual repression. His fear of my imposing some medical prohibition on him is reflected a little too faithfully in the dream for the latter to be altogether above suspicion. Dreams which repeat the real situation too emphatically, or insist too plainly on some anticipated reality, are making use of conscious contents as a means of expression. His dream is really expressing a projection: he projects the killing of the animal on to the doctor. That is the way it appears to him, because he does not know that he himself is injuring his instinct. The pointed instrument generally means the needle of the intellect, with which insects are pinned down and classified. He has "modern" ideas about sex, and does not know that he has an unconscious fear of my taking his pet theories away from him. This possibility is rightly feared, for if it were not in him he would hardly have had this dream. Thus the theriomorphic symbols always refer to unconscious manifestations of libido. 
	262 	There are two main reasons why these instinctual impulses 
are unconscious: the first is the general unconsciousness which we all share to a greater or less degree; the other is a secondary unconsciousness due to the repression of incompatible contents. This is not a cause, but rather a symptom, of a neurotic attitude which prefers to overlook unpleasant facts, and unhesitatingly risks a whole chain of pathological symptoms for the sake of some small advantage in the present. 
	263 	Repression, as we have seen, is not directed solely against 
sexuality, but against the instincts in general, which are the vital foundations, the laws governing all life. The regression caused by repressing the instincts always leads back to the psychic past, and consequently to the phase of childhood where the decisive factors appear to be, and sometimes actually are, the parents. But the inborn instincts of the child play a distinct role aside from the parents, as can be seen from the fact that the parents do not exercise a uniform influence on their children, who each react to them in a different way. They must, 
180 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
therefore, possess individual determinants. Yet, to the empt consciousness of the child, it must seem as if all the determinin influences came from outside, because children cannot di: tinguish their own instincts from the influence and will of thei parents. This lack of discrimination in the child makes it poss ble for the animals which represent the instincts to appear a the same time as attributes of the parents, and for the parent to appear in animal form, the father as a bull, the mother as cow (cf. pI. La), and so onY 
	264 	If the regression goes still further back, beyond the phas 
of childhood to the preconscious, prenatal phase, then arch( typal images appear, no longer connected with the individ uaI's memories, but belonging to the stock of inherited POSSl bilities of representation that are born anew in every individual It is from them that there arise those images of "divine" beings part animal, part human. The guise in which these figures ap pear depends on the attitude of the conscious mind: if it is nega tive towards the unconscious, the animals will be frightening if positive, they appear as the "helpful animals" of fairytale an< legend.12 It frequently happens that if the attitude towards the parents is too affectionate and too dependent, it is compensate< in dreams by frightening animals, who represent the parent: just as much as the helpful animals did. The Sphinx is a fear animal of this kind and still shows clear traces of a mothe: derivative. In the Oedipus legend the Sphinx was sent by Hera who hated Thebes on account of the birth of Bacchus. Oedipus thinking he had overcome the Sphinx sent by the mother goddess merely because he had solved her childishly simph riddle, fell a victim to matriarchal incest and had to marl} ]ocasta, his mother, for the throne and the hand of the widowed queen belonged to him who freed the land from the plague oj the Sphinx. This had all those tragic consequences which could easily have ~een avoided if only Oedipus had been sufficientl) intimidated by the frightening appearance of the "terrible" Ol "devouring" Mother whom the Sphinx personified. (Cf. pIs. XVI, XLVIII.) He was far indeed from the philosophical wonderment 
11 The motif of the "helpful animals" may also be connected with the parental imago. 
12 For relevant case material, see Gerhard Adler, Studies in Analytical Psychology. 
181 

267 
265 
266 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
of Faust: "The Mothers, the Mothers, it has a wondrous sound!" Little did he know that the riddle of the Sphinx can never be solved merely by the wit of man. 
The genealogy of the Sphinx has manifold connections with the problem touched upon here: she was a daughter of Echidna, a monster with the top half of a beautiful maiden, and a hideous serpent below. This double being corresponds to the motherimago: above, the lovely and attractive human half; below, the horrible animal half, changed into a fear-animal by the incest prohibition,13 Echidna was born of the All-Mother, Mother Earth, Gaia, who conceived her with Tartarus, the personification of the underworld. Echidna herself was the mother of all terrors, of the Chimera, Scylla, the Gorgon (pI. xlvb), of frightful Cerberus, of the N emean lion, and of the eagle that devoured the liver of Prometheus. She also gave birth to a number of dragons. One of her sons was Orthrus, the dog of the monster Geryon, who was slain by Heracles. With this dog, her own son, Echidna incestuously begat the Sphinx. This should be sufficient to characterize the complex whose symbol is the Sphinx. It is evident that a factor of such magnitude cannot be disposed of by solving a childish riddle. The riddle was, in fact, the trap which the Sphinx laid for the unwary wanderer. Overestimating his intellect in a typically masculine way, Oedipus walked right into it, and all unknowingly committed the crime of incest. The riddle of the Sphinx was herself -the terrible mother-imago, which Oedipus would not take as a warmng. 
If, in spite of the lack of subjective material, we may venture an inference concerning the sphinx symbol in the case of Miss Miller, we may perhaps say that its meaning for her is approximately the same as it was for Oedipus, even though Oedipus was a man. We would almost expect a masculine sphinx, and as a matter of fact there are masculine as well as feminine sphinxes in Egypt. This may have been known to Miss Miller. (The Sphinx of Thebes was undoubtedly feminine.) If our expectations are correct, it would have to be a masculine monster, because the danger for a woman comes not from the mother, but from the father. ''\le shall leave this question undecided for the moment, and turn back to the facts. After Miss Miller had 13 In Hellenistic syncretism, the Echidna became a cult-symbol of mother Isis. 
182 

268 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO concentrated her thoughts again, the vision continued as lows: 
Suddenly, the apparition of an Aztec, complete in every del hand open, with large fingers, head in profile, armoured, wit head-dress resembling the plumed crests of the American lndi ete. The whole is somewhat suggestive of the carvings on Mexi monuments. 
Our conjecture that a masculine figure was hidden in 
Sphinx is now confirmed. The Aztec is a primitive Indian, rather a primitive American. On the personal level he reI sents the primitive side of the father, since Miss Miller was American. I have frequently observed in the analysis of Am icans that the inferior side of the personality, the "shadow,' is represented by a Negro or an Indian, whereas in the dre of a European it would be represented by a somewhat s113 individual of his own kind. These representatives of the called "lower races" stand for the inferior personality corn] nent of the man. But Miss Miller is a woman. Therefore t shadow would have to be a feminine figure. But what we ha here is a masculine figure which, in view of the role it plays the Miller fantasies, must be regarded as a personification the masculine component of the woman's personality. (Cf. ] XVII.) In my later writings I have called this personification t "animus." 15 
The details of this vision are worth going into, because the are several things to be noticed. The head-dress of eagle feathers has a magical significance. The Indian takes on som thing of the sun-like nature of this bird when he adorns hir self with its feathers, just as he assimilates the courage ar strength of his enemy when he eats the latter's heart or takes h scalp. At the same time the feather crest is a crown which equivalent to the rays of the sun. (PI. xXlb.) The importance e the sun identification was made clear in Part 1. Further pro( of this is furnished not only by innumerable ancient custom but by equally ancient religious figures of speech, as in the Wi 
14 To the extent that the shadow is unconscious it corresponds to the concept, the "personal unconscious." Cf. "On the Psychology of the Unconscious," Tu Essays, par. 103. 
15 Cf. Emma Jung, "Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Animus," pp. 2g6ff. 
183 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
dom of Solomon 5: 16: "Therefore shall they receive ..• a beautiful crown from the Lord's hand." There are countless other passages of this kind in the Bible. A hymn by J. L. K. Allendorf says of the soul: 
The soul is freed from all care and pain And in dying it has come 
To the crown of joy; she stands as bride and queen In the glitter of eternal splendour, 
At the side of the great king. 
It [the soul] sees a clear countenance [sun]: 
His [the sun's] joyful loving nature Now restores it through and through: 
It is a light in his light. 
Now the child can see the father. He feels the gentle emotion of love. 
Now he can understand the word of Jesus. He himself, the father, has loved you. 
An unfathomable sea of benefits, 
An abyss of eternal waves of blessing Is disclosed to the enlightened spirit: 
He beholds the countenance of God, And knows what signifies the inheritor Of God in light and the co-heir of Christ. The feeble body rests on the earth: 
It sleeps until Jesus awakens it. 
Then will the dust become the sun, Which now is covered by the dark cavern: 
Then shall we come together 
With all the pious, who knows how soon, And will be for eternity with the Lord.16 
	1169 	Another hymn, by Laurentius Laurentii (1660-1722), says: 
To the bride, because she conquers, Now is given the eternal crown,17 
16 Bunsen, Gebetbuch, No. 912. p. 789. [As trans. in the Hinkle (1916) edn.] The crown also plays a role in alchemy, perhaps as a result of cabalistic influence. (Cf. the compilation by Goodenough, "The Crown of Victory in ]udaism:' pp. 139fl.) The hermaphrodite is generally represented as crowned (pI. XVIII). I have put together the alchemical material on the crown in my Mysterium Coniunctionis. 
17 Bunsen, No. 494, p. 271. 
184 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
	270 	In a hymn by G. W. Sacer (1635-99) we find the passag 
Adorn my coffin with garlands Just as a conqueror is adorned, From those springs of heaven, My soul has attained 
The eternally green crown: 
The true glory of victory, Coming from the son of God Who has so cared for me.1S 
	271 	Special importance seems to attach to the hand, which 
described as "open," with "large" fingers. It is rather odd the the accent should fall on the hand, as one would rather hay expected a description of the face and its expression. It is we: known that the gesture of the hand is significant; unfortunatel~ further details are lacking here. Nevertheless, we might mer tion a parallel fantasy which also concerns the hand: a patien in a hypnagogic condition saw his mother painted on a wall like a mural in a Byzantine church. She held one hand up, wid, open, with splayed fingers. The fingers were very large, swollel at the ends into knobs, each surrounded by a small halo. Th, immediate association with this image was the fingers of a frol with suckers at the ends; then the resemblance to a phallus The antiquated setting of the mother-image is also important Presumably the hand in this fantasy had a spermatic and ere a tive significance. This interpretation is borne out by othel fantasies b£ the same patient: he saw what looked like a sky rocket going up from his mother's hand, which on closer in spection proved to be a shining bird with golden wings-a golden pheasant, it then occurred to him. We have seen in th(' last chapter that the hand actually has a phallic meaning, and that it plays a corresponding role in the production of' fire. Fire is bored with the hand; therefore fire comes from the hand; and Agni, fire, was worshipped as a golden-winged bird.19 
	272 	Miss Miller says of the Aztec: "In my childhood I was par- 
ticularly interested in Aztec remains and in the history of Peru and the Incas." Unfortunately, she tells us nothing more in this connection. We can, however, conclude from the sudden ap1S Ibid., No. 640, p. 1148. [As trans. in the Hinkle (1916) edn.] 
19 In popular German speech, incendiarism is called "putting a red cock on the roof." 
185 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
pearance of the Aztec that the unconscious was willing to let itself be impressed by her reading, presumably because this material had a natural affinity with her unconscious contents or was able to give them satisfactory expression. Just as we surmised an aspect of the mother in the Sphinx, so the Aztec is probably an aspect of the father. The mother's influence is mainly on the Eros of her son, therefore it was only logical that Oedipus should end up by marrying his mother. But the father exerts his influence on the mind or spirit of his daughter-on her "Logos." This he does by increasing her intellectuality, often to a pathological degree which in my later writings I have described as "animus possession." These spiritual influences played a not unimportant part in the personal history of our author and, as I pointed out in the Foreword to the second edition of this volume, finally led to insanity. Although the Aztec is a masculine figure and thus clearly betrays the influence of the father, it was the feminine Sphinx that came first. In an American girl this might conceivably point to the preponderance of the feminine element. Mother complexes are extremely common in America and often very pronounced, probably because of the strong maternal influence in the home and the social position of women generally. The fact that more than half the capital in America is in women's hands gives one something to think about. As a result of this conditioning many American women develop their masculine side, which is then compensated in the unconscious by an exquisitely feminine instinct, aptly symbolized by a Sphinx. 
	273 	The figure of the Aztec appears with all its "heroic" quali- 
ties: it represents the masculine ideal for the primitive, female side of our author. We have already met this ideal in the Italian naval officer, who "so softly and silently vanished away." Though, in certain respects, he came up to the unconscious ideal that floated before Miss Miller, he was not able to compete with this rival because he lacked the mysterious charm of the "demon lover," of the angel who takes a tender interest in the daughters of men, as angels sometimes seem inclined to do. (Hence the rule that women must cover up their hair in church, where the angels hover near!) We now understand what it was that turned against the naval officer: it was Miss Miller's spirituality, which, personified as the Aztec, was far too exalted for 
186 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
her ever to find a lover among mortal men. However reasonab and unexacting the conscious attitude may be in such a case, will not have the slightest effect on the patient's unconsci01 expectations. Even after the greatest difficulties and resistano have been overcome, and a so-called normal marriage is mad she will only discover later on what the unconscious wants, an this will assert itself either as a change of life style or as neurosis or even a psychosis. 
	274 	After this vision Miss Miller felt that a name was formin 
itself in her "bit by bit," a name that seemed to belong to th Aztec, who was the "son of an Inca of Peru." The name w;; "Chi-wan-to-pel." 20 The author says that it was somehow cor nected with her reminiscences. The act of naming is, like bar tism, extremely important as regards the creation of personaliq for a magical power has been attributed to the name since tim immemorial. To know the secret name of a person is to hav, power over him. A well-known example of this is the tale 0 Rumpelstiltskin. In an Egyptian myth, Isis permanently rob the sun-god Ra of his power by compelling him to tell her hi real name. Therefore, to give a name means to give power, t( invest with a definite personality or soul.21 Here the author re marked that the name reminded her very much of "Popo catepetl," which as we all know belongs to the unforgettabh memories of our school-days and, much to the indignation ol patients under analysis, occasionally turns up in a dream Ol 
20 In the mystery religions, there is no doubt about the identity of the divine hero with the celebrant. A prayer addressed to Hermes says; uu 'Yap €'"to, .a1 ''Y" av . TO UOP 5vo/-la E}J.OP Kal TO EjJ.OJl UOP . E')'W 'Yap eljJ.1. 70 EZb:.AJA6" uov. (For you are I and ] am you; your name is mine and my name is yours; for I am your image). Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, p. 116, Pap. CXXII, 36-38; cited in Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, p. 97. The hero as a libido-image is aptly portrayed in the head of Dionysus in Leiden (Roscher, Lexikon, I, 1128), where the hair is twisted up like a flame. CL Isaiah 10: ]7 (RSV): "The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame." Firmicus Maternus (De errore, XIX) reports that the god was greeted as the "bridegroom" and the "new light." He quotes the saying: vVJ1.q,i. xa<p. vVJ1.q,i. xa<p. v'ov </>:;'s (Hail, bridegroom, hail, new light!), and contrasts it with the Christian: "Nullum aput te lumen est, nec est aIiqui qui sponsus mereatur audire: unum lumen est, un us est sponsus. Nominum horum gratiam Christus accepit" (No light is with you, nor is there anyone who deserves the name of bridegroom: there is only one light, one bridegroom. The grace of these titles is reserved to Christ). 
21 Hence the old custom of giving children the names of saints. 
187 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
association. Although one might hesitate to regard this schoolboy joke as of psychological importance, one must nevertheless inquire into the reasons for its existence. One must also ask: 
Why is it always Popocatepetl and not the neighbouring Ixtaccihuatl, or the even higher and more beautiful Orizaba? The latter is a nicer name and is far easier to pronounce. Popocatepetl, however, is impressive precisely because of its onomatopoeic name. In English the onomatopoeia that comes to mind is pop or pop-gun; in German and French, the words Hinterpommern) Pumpernickel) Bombe) petarde (le pet = flatus). The German word Popo) 'posterior,' does not exist in English,22 but on the other hand to break wind is sometimes called to pop or to poop) and the act of defecation is commonly known as to poop or to poo-poo in childish speech. A jocular name for the posterior is bum. (PooP also means the rear end of a ship.) In French, pouf! is onomatopoeic; poufJer) 'explode,' la poupe) 'poop of a ship,' le poupard) 'baby in arms,' la pOl.lpee) 'doll.' Poupon is a pet name for a chubby-cheeked child. In Dutch, pop is 'doll'; in Latin, puppis means poop of a ship, though Plautus uses it jokingly for the backside of the body; pupus) 'child,' pupula) 'girl, little doll.' The Greek 7r07rrolltw denotes a smacking, snapping, or blowing noise. It is used of kissing, but also (in Theocritus) of the subsidiary noises connected with flute-playing. 
	275 	One of my patients, in his boyhood, always associated the 
act of defecation with the fantasy that his posterior was a volcano in full eruption, with violent explosions of gas and gushings forth of lava. The words for the elemental occurrences of nature are not, as a rule, very poetical: one thinks of a beautiful phenomenon like the meteor, which in German is called "Sternschnuppe" (smouldering wick of a star, which is "snuffed" out). Certain South American Indians call it "piss of the stars." The Voile de la Vierge waterfall in the Valais, famous for its beauty, has only recently been called by this poetic name. Formerly it was known as the Pissevache. One takes the name from the nearest source. 
22 [The term is reported from the United States. In a popular song, "Feet Up, Pat Him on the Po-po," copyright 1952, a baby is being playfully patted on the buttocks. The term is said to occur in American Southern dialect and appears to be unrelated to German.-EDIToRS.] 
188 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
	276 	It seems very puzzling at first why the figure of Chiwantop' 
whom Miss Miller awaited with positively mystical expectati< and whom she herself compared, in a note, to a mediumis1 control, should get into such a disreputable neighbourhood th his very essence-his name-appears to be bound up with tho out-of-the-way regions of the body. In order to understand th we have to realize that when something is produced from tl unconscious, the first thing to come up is the infantile materi that has long been lost to memory. "Ve have, therefore, to ado] the point of view of that time, when this material was still c the surface. So if a much venerated object is related by the UI conscious to the anal region, we have to conclude that this is way of expressing respect and attention, such as the child fee for these forbidden functions. Naturally traces of this infanti: interest still linger on in the adult. The only question whether this interest corresponds to the psychology of the chill Before we attempt to answer this question, it must be said, once that the anal region is very closely connected with vener. tion. An Oriental fairy-tale relates that the Crusaders used t anoint themselves with the excrement of the Pope in order t make themselves more formidable. One of my patients, who ha, a special veneration for her father, had a fantasy in which sh saw her father sitting on a commode in a dignified manneJ while people filed past greeting him effusively. We might als' mention the intimate connection between excrement anc gold: 23 the lowest value allies itself to the highest. The alche mists sought their prima materia in excrement, one of th, arcane substances from which it was hoped that the mysti, figure of the filius philosophorum would emerge ("in stercon invenitur"). A very religiously brought-up young patient ono dreamt that she saw the Crucifix formed of excrement on th( bottom of a blue-flowered chamber-pot. The contrast is so enor mous that one can only assume that the valuations of child hood are totally different from ours. And so, indeed, they are 
23 De Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology) says that dung and gold are always associated in folklore, and Freud tells us the same thing on the basis of his psychological experience. Grimm reports the following magical practice: "If you want money in the house all the year round, you must eat lentils on New Year's Day." This singular association is very simply explained by the indigestibility of lentils, which reappear in the form of coins. In this manner one defecates money. 
189 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
Children bring to the act of defecation and its products an interest 24 such as is later evinced only by the hypochondriac. We can only begin to understand this interest when we realize that the young child connects defecation with a theory of propagation. This puts a somewhat different complexion on the matter. The child thinks: that is how things are produced, how they "come out." 
	277 	The same child on whom I reported in my "Psychic Con- 
flicts in a Child" and who had a well-developed anal birth theory, like Freud's "Little Hans," 25 later contracted the habit of sitting for hours on the toilet. On one occasion her father, grov~ing impatient, went to the toilet and called: "Come out at once! Whatever are you doing?" Whereupon the answer came from within: ''I'm doing a little cart and two ponies!" So the child was "making" a little cart and two ponies, things she particularly wanted at that moment. In this way one can make whatever one wishes. The child wishes passionately for a doll or, at heart, for a real baby-that is, she is practising for her future biological task; and in exactly the same way that things in general are produced, she makes the "doll" 26 that stands for the baby and all her other wishes. From a patient I got a parallel fantasy dating from her childhood: in the toilet there was a crack in the wall, and she used to imagine that a fairy would come out of this crack and give her everything she wished for. The toilet is well known as the place of dreams where much is created that would later be considered unworthy of this place of origin. Lombroso recounts a pathological fantasy of two insane artists, which is relevant here: 
Each of them thought he was God Almighty and the ruler of the universe. They created or produced the world by making it come forth from the rectum, like a bird's egg from the oviduct (or doaca). One of these artists was gifted with real artistic sense. He painted a picture of himself in the act of creation: the world came forth from his anus, his member was in full erection, he was naked, surrounded by women and by all the insignia of his power.27 
24 A French-speaking father, who naturally denied that his child had any sllch interests, nevertheless mentioned that whenever the child spoke of "cacao" (cocoa) he always added "lit" (bed), meaning "caca-au-lit." 
25 "Psychic Conflicts in a Child," Cf. also Freud, "Analysis of a Phobia in a 
	Five-year-old Boy." 	26 See the etymological connections given above. 
27 Lombroso, Genio e Follia, p. 141. 
190 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
	278 	It was only after I realized these connections that an observ 
tion I made many years ago, which kept on bothering n because I had never rightly understood it, finally became cle: to me. The patient was an educated woman who was separaH from her husband and child under tragic circumstances ar: taken to an asylum. She exhibited a typical apathy and sloven] ness which were considered due to "affective deterioration." j I rather doubted this deterioration and was inclined to regal it more as a secondary phenomenon, I took great pains to fin out how I could get at the blocked source of affect. Finall after more than three hours' hard work, I hit upon a train ( thought that suddenly produced a violent outburst of affect i the patient. Complete affective rapport was instantly estal lished. This happened in the morning, and when I returned ( the appointed time in the evening to see her in the ward, sb had smeared herself with excrement from head to foot for m reception, and cried out laughingly: "How do you like m now?" She had never done this before; it was obviously gesture intended for my benefit. The impression it made 0 me was so powerful that for years afterwards I was convince of the affective deterioration of such cases. In reality this cen mony of welcome was a drastic attempt to ward off the transfel ence-in so far as the patient acted as an adult. But in so fa as she acted on the level of regressive infantilism, the ceremon denoted an outburst of positive feeling. Hence the equivoc~ "Do you like me now?" 
	279 	The birth of Chiwantopel from Popocatepetl therefor 
means: "I make, produce, invent him out of myself." It is th creation or birth of man by the infantile route. The first me] were made from earth or clay. The Latin lutum) which reall means 'mud,' also had the metaphorical meaning of 'filth. Plautus even uses it as a term of abuse, something like "yOl scum!" The idea of anal birth recalls the motif of throwin: something behind one. A well-known example of this is th, story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the sole survivors of the Flood who were told by the oracle to throw behind them the bones 0 the Great Mother. They thereupon threw stones behind them from which mankind sprang. There is a similar legend that thl Dactyls sprang from the dust which the nymph Anchiale thre"V behind her. In this connection one thinks of the humorous sig 
191 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
nificance that attaches to anal products: in popular humour excrement is often regarded as a monument or souvenir (which in the case of criminals plays an important part in the form of the grumus merdae). Everyone knows the joke about the man who wandered through labyrinthine passages looking for a hidden treasure, and who, after shedding all his clothing, de· posited an excrementum as a last sign-post for the journey back. In the distant past no doubt such a sign possessed as great a significance as the droppings of animals to indicate a man's whereabouts or the direction taken. Stone monuments will later have replaced this more perishable memorial. 
	280 	As a parallel to Chiwantopel's emergence into consciousness, 
Miss Miller mentions another instance of a name suddenly obtruding itself on her mind: "A-ha-ma-ra-ma," which, she felt, had something Assyrian about it. As a possible source there came into her mind the words: "Asurabama (who made cuneiform bricks)." This fact was unknown to me. We know that Assurbanipalleft behind him the cuneiform library excavated at Kuyunjik, and it may be that "Asurabama" has something to do with "Assurbanipal." We must also consider the name "Ahollbamah," which we met in Part 1. The word "Ahamarama" likewise has associations with Anah and Aholibamah, those daughters of Cain with the sinful passion for the sons of God. This possibility points to Chiwantopel as the longed-for son of God. Was Byron thinking, perhaps, of the two whorish sisters Aholah and Aholibah (Ezek. 23)? Aholibamah was the name of one of Esau's wives (Gen. 36: 2 and 14), and another wife was called Adah. Dr. Riwkah Scharf has drawn my attention to a dissertation by Georg Mayn (1887) on Byron's "Heaven and Earth," in which the author points out that Anah was probably Adah in the original draft, but that Byron altered it to Anah because Adah had already occurred in his drama "Cain." So far as the meaning of the words is concerned, Aholibamah is reminiscent of Aholah and Aholibah: Aholah means "(she has) her (own) tabernacle," i.e., her own temple, and Aholibah means "my tabernacle is in her," i.e., in Jerusalem, just as Aholah is the name of Samaria (Ezek. 23: 4). In Gen. 36: 41 Aholibamah is also the name of one of the "dukes of Edom." The Canaanites worshipped on hills-bamothand a synonym for hill is ramah. Whether Miss Miller's neolo- 
192 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
gism "Ahamarama" can legitimately be connected with this open to question. 
	281 	Miss Miller remarks that besides the name "Asurabama" s~ 
also thought of "Ahasuerus." This association points to a vel different aspect of the problem of the unconscious personalit' While the previous material told us something about the il fantile theory of human birth, this association gives us a glimp5 into the dynamics of the unconscious creation of personalit~ Ahasuerus is the Wandering Jew, whose main characteristi was that he had to wander restlessly over the earth till the en of the world. The fact that this particular name occurred to th author justifies us in following his trail. 
	%82 	The legend of Ahasuerus, whose first literary traces are to b 
found in the thirteenth century, appears to be of Occidenta origin. The figure of the Eternal Jew has undergone even mar literary elaboration than that of Faust, practically all of it datin: from the last century. If the figure were not called Ahasuerw it would still exist under another name, perhaps as the Comtl de Saint-Germain, the mysterious Rosicrucian, whose immortal ity is assured and whose present whereabouts are supposed t( be known.28 Although the stories about Ahasuerus cannot bl traced beyond the thirteenth century, the oral tradition may g( much further back, and it is possible that a link with the Orien once existed. There the parallel figure is Khidr or El-Khadr the "eternally youthful Chidher" celebrated in song by Friedricl Riickert. The legend is purely Islamic.29 The strange thing is however, that Khidr is not only regarded as a saint, but ir Sufic circles even has the status of a deity. In view of the stric monotheism of Islam, one is inclined to think of him as a pre Islamic, Arabian deity who, though not officially recognized b) the new religion, was tolerated for reasons of expediency. Bul there is nothing to prove that. The first traces of Khidr are te be found in the commentaries on the Koran by al-Bukhari (d, 870) an dal-Tabari (d. 923), and especially in the commentar) on a noteworthy passage in the 18th Sura. This is entitled "The Cave," after the cave of the seven sleepers who, according to 
28 Popular belief refuses to give, up its wandering sun-heroes. Cagliostro, for instance, is said to have driven out of the city of Basel frbm all the gates simul. taneously, with four white horses! 
29 Cf. my paper "Concerning Rebirth." 
193 

This is followed immediately by the Transfiguration: 
And (he) was transfigured before them: and his face did shine a. the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 
And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talkin! with him. 
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good f01 us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; onl for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 
88 Vollers, "Chidher," pp. 234-84. This is my source for the Koran commentarieli 84 Also with Mithras and Christ. See par. 165, above. 
195 
283 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
legend, slept in it for 309 years, thus escaping the persecution, and woke up in a new age. It is interesting to see how the Koran, after lengthy moral reflections in the course of this same sura, comes to the following passage, which is especially important as regards the origin of the Khidr myth. I quote the Koran literally: 30 
And Moses said to his servant (Joshua the son of Nun): "I will not cease to wander 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 (which they had brought with them for food), and it took its way through a canal to the sea. And when they had gone past this place, Moses said to his servant: "Bring us our breakfast, for we are weary from our journey." But his servant answered: "See what has befallen me! When we were encamped there by the rock, I forgot the fish. Only Satan can have caused me to forget the fish and put it out of my mind, and in wondrous wise 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 31 had endowed with Our grace and 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 be able to endure me, for how should you have patience to bear with things you cannot comprehend?" 
Moses now accompanies the mysterious servant of God, who does divers things which Moses cannot comprehend; finally the Unknown takes leave of him and speaks as follows: 
The Jews will ask you about Dhulqarnein.32 Say: I will tell you a story of him. We established his kingdom on earth and gave him the 
30 [The following passages are translated from the version used by the author, the source of which is not given. The material may also be found in Pickthall's 
	trans., pp. 30Il£., and RodweU's, pp. 186ff.- TRANs.] 	31 Allah. 
32 The "two-horned." According to the commentators this refers to Alexander the Great, who in Arabian legend plays the same kind of role as Dietrich of Bern. The two-horned refers to the strength of the sun-bull. Alexander is often found on coins with the horns of Jupiter Ammon. (PI. xxa.) This is one of the identifications of the legendary ruler with the spring sun in the sign of the Ram. There can be no doubt that mankind felt a great need to eliminate everything personal and human from its heroes so as to make them equal to the sun, Le., absolute libido-symbols, through a kind of metastasis. If we think like Schopenhauer, we shall say "libido-symbol"; but if we think like Goethe, we say "sun:' We exist because the sun sees us. 
194 

284 
285 
286 
IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
means of fulfilling all his wishes. He took his way until he came the place where the sun sets, and it seemed to him as if it set in black muddy spring .... 
Now follows a moral reflection, then the story continues: 
Then he took his way further, until he came to the place where t] sun rises .... 
If we wish to know who the unknown servant of God is, tb passage tells us that he is Dhulqarnein, Alexander; he goes the place of setting and the place of rising, like the sun. Tl commentators explain that the unknmvn servant of God Khidr, "the Verdant One, the tireless wanderer, the teacher an counsellor of pious men, wise in divine knowledge, the in mortal." 33 On the authority of al-Tabari, Khidr is connecte with Dhulqarnein: Khidr, following the armies of Alexande reached the "stream of life," and they both unwittingly dran of it, and so became immortal. Moreover, Khidr is identifie by the old commentators with Elias (Elijah), who also did ne die, but ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot, a feature h shares with Helios.34 It has been conjectured that Ahasuen owes his existence to an obscure passage in the Bible. This pa: sage occurs in Matthew 16: 28. First comes the scene wher Christ appoints Peter as the rock of his Church and names hir the holder of his power; then follows the prophecy of his deat!ending with the words: 
Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shal not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his king dam. 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
	287 	From these passages it is clear that Christ is somehow 
equated with Elias without being identical with him,35 although the people regarded him as Elias. The ascension, however, forms a parallel between Elias and Christ. Christ's prophecy shows that there are one or two immortals besides himself who shall not die until the Second Coming. According to John 21 : 21 ff., ] ohn himself was considered to be one of these immortals, and in legend he is in fact not dead, but merely sleeping in the earth until the Second Coming, and his breath causes the dust to swirl around his grave.36 
	288 	Another legend 37 says that Dhulqarnein brought his "friend" 
Khidr to the source of life, that he might drink of immortality.3s Alexander himself bathed in the stream of life and performed the ritual ablutions. In the Arabian legend Khidr is the companion, or else he is accompanied (either by Dhulqarnein or by Elias, being "like unto" them or identical with them).39 There are, therefore, two figures who resemble one another but are nevertheless distinct. The analogous situation in Christianity is the scene by the Jordan, where John leads Christ to the source of life. Christ, as the baptized, is here the subordinate, while John plays the superior role, as in the case of Dhulqarnein and Khidr, or Khidr and Moses, and Khidr and Elias. Vollers compares Khidr and Elias on the one hand with Gilgamesh and his primitive brother Eabani or Enkidu, and on the other hand with the Dioscuri, one of whom was mortal and the other immortal. This relation applies equally to Jesus and John the Baptist,40 and Jesus and Peter. The last-named parallel can be explained only by comparison with the Mithraic mysteries, whose esoteric content is revealed to us in part by the surviving monuments. On the marble relief at Klagenfurt,41 Mithras is shown crowning Helios with a crown of rays, as he kneels be- 
35 On the other hand, according to Matthew 17: 13, Elias is to be understood as John the Baptist. 
36 Cf. the Kyffhauser legend. [Referring to the Emperor Barbarossa, who is said 
	to sleep inside a mountain.-EDlToRs.] 	37 Vollers, "Chidher." 
33 There is also a legend that Alexander had been on the "mountain of Adam" in India, with his "minister" Khidr. 
39 These mythological equations follow the dream rule that the dreamer can be split up into several figures. 
40 John 3: 30: "He must increase, but I must decrease." 41 Cumont, Textes, I, pp. 1721£. 
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IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
fore him or floats up to him from below. On the Osterburl monument, Mithras has in his right hand the shoulder of mystic bull and holds it above the head of Helios, who staJ bowed before him; his left hand rests on his sword hilt; a cro lies between them on the ground. Cumont 42 remarks that t scene probably represents the divine prototype of initiation il the degree of Miles, when a sword and crown were con fen on the neophyte. Helios is therefore appointed the Miles Mithras. In general, Mithras seems to act in the capacity patron to Helios. This recalls the bold attitude of Herac towards the sun: on his way to fight the monster Geryon t sun burned too fiercely, so Heracles wrathfully threatened h with his invincible arrows. Helios was compelled to yield, a thereupon lent the hero the sun-ship which he used for crossi the sea. Thus Heracles came to Erythia, to the sun-cattle Geryon.43 
	289 	On the Klagenfurt monument, Mithras is also shown sh, 
ing Helios by the hand, either in farewell or in agreement. C xXlva.) In another scene he mounts the chariot of Helios for t ascension or sea-journey.44 Cumont is of the opinion d Mithras performs a kind of ceremonial investiture: he con crates the divine power of Helios by crowning him with I own hands.45 This relationship corresponds to that betwe Christ and Peter. Peter's attribute, the cock, gives him a sol character. After Christ's ascension he becomes the visible rep] sentative of God; therefore he suffers the same death-crul fixion-as his master, replaces the chief deity of the Rom; imperium, the Sol invictus) and becomes the head of the ChuTi Militant and Triumphant. In the Malchus scene he alrea~ appears as the Miles of Christ, the holder of the sword. H successors all wear the triple crown. But the crown is a sol 
42 Ibid., p. 173. 
43 The parallel between Heracles and Mithras can be carried even further. Li Heracles, Mithras is an excellent archer. Judging from certain of the monumen it would seem that not only Heracles, but Mithras too, was threatened in you by a snake. The labours of Heracles have the same meaning as the conquest al sacrifice of the bull in the Mithraic mystery. (Cf. fig. 17.) 
44 These three scenes are represented in a row on the Klagenfurt monument, presumably there was some dramatic connection between them. Illustrated Cumont. Mysteries of Mithra, fig. 24. p. 133. 
45 Ibid. See also Roscher. H. 3048. 42fI. 
197 

10.	
290 
291 

SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION: TWO 
attribute, hence the Pope is a symbolical "solis invicti comes" like the Roman Caesars. The setting sun appoints a successor whom he invests with his solar power. Dhulqarnein gives Khidr eternal life, Khidr imparts his wisdom to Moses; there is even a legend that Moses' forgetful servant Joshua unwittingly drank from the fountain of life, whereupon he became immortal and, as a punishment, was placed in a boat by Khidr and Moses and cast out to sea-another fragment of a sun-myth, the motif of the "sea-journey." 46 
The symbol for that portion of the zodiac in which the sun re-enters the yearly cycle at the time of the winter solstice is Capricorn, originally known as the "Goat-Fish" (al'YbXEpW~, 'goat-horned'): the sun mounts like a goat to the tops of the highest mountains, and then plunges into the depths of the sea like a fish. The fish in dreams occasionally signifies the unborn child,47 because the child before its birth lives in the water like a fish; similarly, when the sun sinks into the sea, it becomes child and fish at once. The fish is therefore a symbol of renewal and rebirth. 
The journey of Moses with his servant Joshua is a lifejourney (it lasted eighty years). They grow old together and lose the life-force, i.e., the fish, which "in wondrous wise took its way to the sea" (setting of the sun). When the two notice their loss, they discover at the place where the source of life is found (where the dead fish revived and sprang into the sea) Khidr wrapped in his mantle,48 sitting on the ground. In another version he was sitting on an island in the midst of the sea, "in the wettest place on earth," which means that he had just been born from the maternal depths. Where the fish vanished Khidr, the Verdant One, was born as a "son of the watery deep," his head veiled, proclaiming divine wisdom, like the 
46 Cf. Frobenius, Zeitalter des Sonnengottes. 
47 This interpretation is still a bit mythological; to be more accurate, the fish signifies an autonomous content of the unconscious. Manu had a fish with horns. Christ was a fish, like 'lxOV<, son of the Syrophoenician Derceto. Joshua ben Nun was called "son of the fish." The "two-horned" (Dhulqarnein = Alexander) turns up in the legend of Khidr. (Cf. pI. xxa.) 
48 The wrapping signifies invisibility, hence to be a "spirit." That is why the neophytes were veiled in the mysteries. (Cf. pI. Ivb.) Children born with a caul over their heads are supposed to be particularly fortunate. 
198 

292 

IV. THE ORIGIN OF THE HERO 
Babylonian Oannes-Ea (cf. fig. 18), who was represented in form and daily came out of the sea as a fish to teach the pe< wisdom.49 
Fig. 18. Priest with a fish-mask, representing Oannes 
Relief, Nimrud 
Oannes' name was brought into connection with JOhI With the rising of the reborn sun the fish that dwelt in da ness, surrounded by all the terrors of night and death,50 becon 
49 The Etruscan Tages, the boy who sprang from the freshly ploughed furn was also a teacher of wisdom. In the Litaolane myth of the Basuto (Frobeni p. 105), we are told how a monster devoured all human beings and left only ( Woman alive, who gave birth to a son, the hero, in a cowshed (instead of a ca1 Before she could prepare a bed of straw for the infant, he was already grown and spoke "words of wisdom." The rapid growth of the hero, a recurrent mo seems to indicate that the birth and apparent childhood of the hero are extraor nary because his birth is really "a rebirth, for which reason he is able to adapt quickly to his heroic role. For a more detailed interpretation of the Khidr legel see my paper "Concerning Rebirth" (Swiss edn., pp. 73ff.). 
50 Cf. Ra's fight with the night serpent. 
199