Psychology of the unconscious : a study of the transformations and symbolisms of the libido : a contribution to the history of the evolution of thought

Front matter

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Part I Chapter

INTRODUCTION . *

Relation of the Incest Phantasy to the Oedipus Legend — Moral revulsion over such a discovery — The unity of the antique and modern psychology — Followers of Freud in this field — The need of analyzing historical material in relation to individual analysis.

I.— CONCERNING THE TWO KINDS OF THINKING . . 8

Antiquity of the belief in dreams — Dream-meanings psychological, not literal — They concern wish-fulfilments — A typical dream: the sexual assault — What is symbolic in our everyday thinking? — One kind of thinking: intensive and deliberate, or directed — Directed thinking and thinking in words — Origin of speech in primitive nature sounds — The evolution of speech — Directed thinking a modern acquisition — Thinking, not directed, a thinking in images: akin to dreaming — Two kinds of thinking: directed and dream or phantasy thinking — Science an expression of directed thinking — The discipline of scholasticism as a forerunner — Antique spirit created not science but mythology — Their world of subjective phantasies similar to that we find in the childmind of to-day; or in the savage — The dream shows a similar type — Infantile thinking and dreams a re-echo of the prehistoric and the ancient — The myths a mass-dream of the people: the dream the myth of the individual — Phantastic thinking concerns wishes — Typical cases, showing kinship with ancient myths — Psychology of man changes but slowly — Phantastic thinking tells us of mythical or other material of undeveloped and no longer recognized wish tendencies in the soul — The sexual base — The wish, because of its disturbing nature, expressed not directly, but symbolically.

II.— THE MILLER PHANTASIES 42

Miss Miller's unusual suggestibility — Identifying herself with others — Examples of her autosuggestibility and suggestive effect — Not striking in themselves, but from analytic viewpoint they afford a glance into the soul of the writer — Her phantasies really tell of the history of her love.

III.— THE HYMN OF CREATION 49

Miss Miller's description of a sea-journey — Reallv a description of " introversion " — A retreat from reality into

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CONTENTS herself — The return to the real world with erotic impression of officer singing in the night-watch — The undervaluing of such erotic impressions — Their often deep effect — The succeeding dream, and poem — The denied erotic impression usurps an earlier transference: it expresses itself through the Father-Imago — Analysis of the poem — Relation to Cyrano, Milton and Job — The attempt to escape the problem by a religious and ethical pose — Contrast with real religion — Escape from erotic by transference to a God or Christ — This made effective by mutual transference: "Love one another " — The erotic spiritualized, however — The inner conflict kept conscious by this method — The modern, however, represses the conflict and so becomes neurotic — The function of Christianity — Its biologic purpose fulfilled — Its forms of thought and wisdom still available.

IV.— THE SONG OF THE MOTH 87

The double role of Faust: creator and destroyer — "I came not to send peace, but a sword " — The modern problem of choice between Scylla of world-renunciation and Charybdis of world-acceptance — The ethical pose of The Hymn of Creation having failed, the unconscious projects a new attempt in the Moth-Song — The choice, as in Faust — The longing for the sun (or God) the same as that for the ship's officer — Not the object, however: the longing is important— God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors — The failure to replace by a real compensation the libido-object which is surrendered, produces regression to an earlier and discarded object — A return to the infantile — The use of the parent image — It becomes synonymous with God, Sun, Fire — Sun and snake — Symbols of the libido gathered into the sun-symbol — The tendency toward unity and toward multiplicity — One God with many attributes: or many gods that are attributes of one — Phallus and sun — The sun-hero, the well-beloved — Christ as sun-god — " Moth and sun " then brings us to historic depths of the soul — The sun-hero creative and destructive — Hence: Moth and Flame: burning one's wings — The destructiveness of being fruitful — Wherefore the neurotic withdraws from the conflict, committing a sort of self-murder — Comparison with Byron's Heaven and Earth.

Part II I.— Aspects Of The Libido 127

A backward glance — The sun the natural god — Comparison with libido — Libido, " sun-energy " — The sun-image as seen by the mystic in introversion — The phallic symbol of the libido — Faust's key — Mythical heroes with phallic attributes— These heroes personifications of the human libido and its typical fates — A definition of the word " libido " — Its etymological context.

CONTENTS li

II— THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF

LIBIDO 139

A widening of the conception of libido — New light from the study of paranoia — The impossibility of restricting the conception of libido to the sexual — A genetic definition — The function of reality only partly sexual — Yet this, and other functions, originally derivations from procreative impulse — The process of transformation — Libido, and the conception of will in general — Examples in mythology — The stages of the libido: its desexualized derivatives and differentiations — Sublimation vs. repression — Splittings off of the primal libido — Application of genetic theory of libido to introversion psychoses — Replacing reality by archaic surrogates — Desexualizing libido by means of phantastic analogy formations — Possibly human consciousness brought to present state in this manner — The importance of the little phrase: " Even as."

III.— THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LIBIDO. A POSSIBLE

SOURCE OF PRIMITIVE HUMAN DISCOVERIES . 157

An example of transition of the libido — Act of boring with forefinger: an infantile presexual activity — Similar activities in patient's early childhood — Outcome in dementia praecox — Its phantasies related to mythological products: a reproduction of the creations of antiquity — The freeing of libido from the nutritive to enter the sexual function — The epoch of suckling and the epoch of displaced rhythmic activity — These followed by the beginnings of onanistic attempts — An obstacle in the sexual zone produces regression to a previous mode — These regressions easier in earlier stages of humanity than now — The ethnological phantasy of boring — Examples — The production of fire — Its sexual significance — A substitute for coitus — The invention of fire-making then due to the need of supplying a symbol for the sexual act — The psychological compulsion for such transitions of the libido based on an original division of the will — Regression to incestuous — Prohibition here sends incestuous component of libido back to pre-sexual — Character of its application here — The substitution of Mother-Earth for the parent — Also of infantile boring — Leading then to discovery of fire — An example in Hindoo literature — The sexual significance of the mouth — Its other function: the mating call — The regression which produced fire through boring also elaborated the mating call — The beginnings of speech — Example from the Hindoo — Speech and fire the firstfruits of transformation of libido — The fire-preparation regarded as forbidden, as robbery — The forbidden thing onanism — Onanism a cheating of sexuality of its purpose — The ceremonial fire-production a substitute for the possibility of onanistic regression — Thus a transformation of libido ensues.

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IV.— THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO . . . 191

The cause of introversion — The forward and backward flow of the libido — The abnormal third — The conflict rooted in the incest problem — The " terrible mother " — Miss Miller's introversion — An internal conflict — Its product of hypnagogic vision and poem — The uniformity of the unconscious in all men — The unconscious the object of a true psychology — The individual tendency with its production of the hero cult — The love for the hero or god a love for the unconscious— A turning back to the mother of humanity — Such regressions act favorably within limits — Miss Miller's mention of the Sphinx — Theriomorphic representations of the libido — Their tendency to represent father and mother — The Sphinx represents the fear of the mother — Miss Miller's mention of the Aztec — Analysis of this figure — The significance of the hand symbolically — The Aztec a substitute for the Sphinx — The name Chi-wan-to-pel — The connection of the anal region with veneration — Chiwantopel and Ahasver, the Wandering Jew — The parallel with Chidher — Heroes generating themselves through their own mothers — Analogy with the Sun — Setting and rising sun: Mithra and Helios, Christ and Peter, Dhulqarnein and Chidher — The fish symbol — The two Dadophores: the two thieves — The mortal and immortal parts of man — The Trinity taken from phallic symbolism — Comparison of libido with phallus — Analysis of libido symbolism always leads back to the mother incest — The hero myth the myth of our own suffering unconscious — Faust.

V.— SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH . 233

The crowd as symbol of mystery — The city as symbol of the mother — The motive of continuous " union " — The typical journey of the sun-hero — Examples — A longing for rebirth through the mother — The compulsion to symbolize the mother as City, Sea, Source, etc. — The city as terrible mother and as holy mother — The relation of the watermotive to rebirth — Of the tree-motive — Tree of life a mother-image — The bisexual character of trees — Such symbols to be understood psychologically, not anatomically — The incestuous desire aims at becoming a child again, not at incest — It evades incest by creating myths of symbolic rebirth — The libido spiritualized through this use of symbols— To be born of the spirit — This compulsion toward symbolism brings a release of forces bound up in incest — This process in Christianity — Christianity with its repression of the manifest sexual the negative of the ancient sexual cult — The unconscious transformation of the incest wish into religious exercise does not meet the modern need — A conscious method necessary, involving moral autonomy — Replacing belief by understanding — The history of the symbolism of trees — The rise of the idea of the terrible mother a mask of the incest wish — The myth of Osiris — Related examples — The motive of "devouring" — The Cross of

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Christ: tree of death and tree of life — Lilith: the devouring mother — The Lamias — The conquering of the mother — Snake and dragon: the resistance against incest — The father represents the active repulse of the incest wish of the son — He frequently becomes the monster to be overcome by the hero — The Mithraic sacrificing of the incest wish an overcoming of the mother — A replacing of archaic overpowering by sacrifice of the wish — The crucified Christ an expression of this renunciation — Other cross sacrifices — Cross symbol possesses significance of "union" — Child in mother's womb: or man and mother in union — Conception of the soul a derivative of mother imago — The power of incest prohibition created the self-conscious individual — It was the coercion to domestication — The further visions of Miss Miller.

VI.— THE BATTLE FOR DELIVERANCE FROM THE

MOTHER 307

The appearance of the hero Chiwantopel on horseback — Hero and horse equivalent of humanity and its repressed libido — Horse a libido symbol, partly phallic, partly maternal, like the tree — It represents the libido repressed through the incest prohibition — The scene of Chiwantopel and the Indian — Recalling Cassius and Brutus: also delirium of Cyrano — Identification of Cassius with his mother — His infantile disposition — Miss Miller's hero also infantile — Her visions arise from an infantile mother transference — Her hero to die from an arrow wound — The symbolism of the arrow — The onslaught of unconscious desires — The deadly arrows strike the hero from within — It means the state of introversion — A sinking back into the world of the child — The danger of this regression — It may mean annihilation or new life — Examples of introversion — The clash between the retrogressive tendency in the individual unconscious and the conscious forward striving — Willed introversion — The unfulfilled sacrifice in the Miller phantasy means an attempt to renounce the mother: the conquest of a new life through the death of the old — The hero Miss Miller herself.

VII.— THE DUAL MOTHER ROLE 34I

Chiwantopel's monologue — His quest for the " one who understands " — A quest for the mother — Also for the lifecompanion — The sexual element in the wish — The battle for independence from the mother — Its peril — Miss Miller's use of Longfellow's Hiawatha — An analysis of Hiawatha — A typical hero of the libido — The miraculous birth — The hero's birth symbolic because it is really a rebirth from the mother-spouse — The twofold mother which in Christian mythology becomes twofold birth — The hero his own procreator — Virgin conception a mask for incestuous impregnation— Hiawatha's early life — The identification of mothernature with the mother — The killing of a roebuck a conquering of the parents — He takes on their strength — He goes forth to slay the father in order to possess the mother liv CONTENTS

— Minnehaha, the mother — Hiawatha's introversion — Hiding in the lap of nature really a return to the mother's womb — The regression to the presexual revives the importance of nutrition — The inner struggle with the mother, to overpower and impregnate her — This fight against the longing for the mother brings new strength — The Mondamin motive in other myths — The Savior-hero the fruit of the entrance of the libido into the personal maternal depths — This is to die, and be born again — Hiawatha's struggle with the fish-monster — A new deliverance from the mother — And so again with Megissogwon, the Magician — The hero must again and again conquer the mother — Then follows his marriage with Minnehaha — Other incidents, his death: the sinking of the sun in the west — Miss Miller also reminded by Chiwantopel's longing of Wagner's Siegfried — Analysis of the Siegfried myth — The treasure-guarding dragon — The dragon the son's repressed longing for the mother — Symbolism of the cave — The separation from the mother, the hero's conquering of the dragon — The symbolism of the cup — Drinking from the mother — Cup of the blood of Christ — The resultant mysterious union of man — Profane interpretations of this mystery — The phallic significance of the serpent — The snake as representing the introverting libido — Self-procreation: or creation of the world through introversion— The world thus an emanation of the libido — The hero himself a serpent — The psychoanalytic treatment of regression — The hidden libido touched upon causes a struggle: that is, the hero fights the fight with the treasure-guarding dragon — The awakening of Brunhilda — Siegfried finding his mother: a symbol of his own libido — The conquest of the terrible mother brings the love and life-giving mother.

VIII.— THE SACRIFICE 428

Miss Miller's vision again — The paradoxical striving of the libido away from the mother toward the mother — The destroying mother becomes beneficent on being conquered— Chiwantopel a hero of words, not deeds — He has not that will to live which breaks the magic circle of the incestuous — His identification with the author, and her wish for the parents — The end is the devouring of the daughter's libido by the mother — Sexuality of the unconscious merely a symbol — Idle dreaming the mother of the fear of death — This downward path in the poetry of Holderlin — The estrangement from reality, the introversion leading to death — The necessity of freeing libido for a complete devotion to life — Otherwise bound by unconscious compulsion: Fate — Sublimation through voluntary work — Creation of the world through cosmic sacrifice — Man discovers the world when he sacrifices the mother — The incest barrier as the producer of thought — Budding sexuality drawing the individual from the family — The mind dawns at the moment the child begins to be free of the mother —

CONTENTS Iv

He seeks to win the world, and leave the mother — Childish regression to the presexual brings archaic phantasies — The incest problem not physical, but psychological — Sacrifice of of the horse: sacrifice of the animal nature — The sacrifice of the "mother libido": of the son to the mother — Superiority of Christian symbol: the sacrifice, not only of lower nature, but the whole personality — Miss Miller's phantasy passes from sacrifice of the sexual, to sacrifice of the infantile personality — Problem of psychoanalysis, expressed mythological ly, the sacrifice and rebirth of the infantile hero — The libido wills the destruction of its creation: horse and serpent — The end of the hero by means of earthquake — The one who understands him is the mother.

" Therefore theory, which gives to facts their value and significance, is often very useful, even if it is partially false, for it throws light on phenomena which no one observed, it forces an examination, from many angles, of facts which no one had hitherto studied, and it gives the impulse for more extended and more productive researches.

" It is, therefore, a moral duty for the man of science to expose himself to the risk of committing error and to submit to criticism, in order that science may continue to progress. A tvriter has attacked the author for this very severely, saying, here is a scientific ideal very limited and very paltry. But those who are endowed with a mind sufficiently serious and impersonal as not to believe that all that they write is the expression of truth absolute and eternal, approve of this theory which places the aims of science well above the miserable vanity and paltry ' amour propre ' of the scientist." — Guglielmo Ferrero.

PART I INTRODUCTION

Any one who can read Freud's " Interpretation of the Dream " without scientific rebellion at the newness and apparently unjustified daring of its analytical presentation, and without moral indignation at the astonishing nudity of the dream interpretation, and who can allow this unusual array of facts to influence his mind calmly and without prejudice, will surely be deeply impressed at that place where Freud calls to mind the fact that an individual psychologic conflict, namely, the Incest Phantasy, is the essential root of that powerful ancient dramatic material, the Oedipus legend. The impression made by this simple reference may be likened to that wholly peculiar feeling which arises in us if, for example, in the noise and tumult of a modern street we should come across an ancient relic — the Corinthian capital of a walled-in column, or a fragment of inscription. Just a moment ago we were given over to the noisy ephemeral life of the present, when something very far away and strange appears to us, which turns our attention to things of another order; a glimpse away from the incoherent multiplicity of the present to a higher coherence in history. Very likely it would suddenly occur to us that on this spot where we now run busily to and fro a similar life and activity prevailed two thousand years ago in somewhat other forms; similar passions moved mankind, and man was likewise convinced of the uniqueness of his existence. I would liken the impression which the first acquaintance with the monuments of antiquity so easily leaves behind to that impression which Freud's reference to the Oedipus legend makes — for while we are still engaged with the confusing impressions of the variability of the Individual Soul, suddenly there is opened a revelation of the simple greatness of the Oedipus tragedy — that never extinguished light of the Grecian theatre.

This breadth of outlook carries in itself something of revelation. For us, the ancient psychology has long since been buried among the shadows of the past; in the schoolroom one could scarcely repress a sceptical smile when one indiscreetly reckoned the comfortable matronly age of Penelope and the age of Jocasta, and comically compared the result of the reckoning with the tragic-erotic struggles in the legend and drama. We did not know at that time (and who knows even today?) that the mother can be the all-consuming passion of the son, which perhaps undermines his whole life and tragically destroys it, so that not even the magnitude of the Oedipus Fate seems one jot overdrawn. Rare and pathologically understood cases like Ninon de Lenclos and her son 1 lie too far removed from most of us to give a living impression. But when we follow the paths traced out by Freud, we arrive at a recognition of the present existence of such possibilities, which, although they are too weak to enforce incest, are still strong enough to cause disturbances of considerable magnitude in the soul. The admission

INTRODUCTION 5

of such possibilities to one's self does not occur without a great burst of moral revulsion. Resistances arise which only too easily dazzle the intellect, and, through that, make knowledge of self impossible. Whenever we succeed, however, in stripping feelings from more scientific knowledge, then that abyss which separates our age from the antique is bridged, and, with astonishment, we see that Oedipus is still a living thing for us. The importance of such an impression should not be undervalued. We are taught by this insight that there is an identity of elementary human conflicts existing independent of time and place. That which affected the Greeks with horror still remains true, but it is true for us only when we give up a vain illusion that we are different — that is to say, more moral, than the ancients. We of the present day have nearly succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble common bond binds us to the people of antiquity. With this truth a path is opened to the understanding of the ancient mind; an understanding which so far has not existed, and, on one side, leads to an inner sympathy, and, on the other side, to an intellectual comprehension. Through buried strata of the individual soul we come indirectly into possession of the living mind of the ancient culture, and, just precisely through that, do we win that stable point of view outside our own culture, from which, for the first time, an objective understanding of their mechanisms would be possible. At least that is the hope which we get from the rediscovery of the Oedipus problem.

The enquiry made possible by Freud's work has already resulted fruitfully; we are indebted to this stimulation for some bold attacks upon the territory of the history of the human mind. There are the works of Riklin,2 Abraham,3 Rank,4 Maeder,5 Jones,6 — recently Silberer has joined their ranks with a beautiful investigation entitled " Phantasie und Mythus." 7 We are indebted to Pfister 8 for a comprehensive work which cannot be overlooked here, and which is of much importance for Christian religious psychology. The leading purpose of these works is the unlocking of historical problems through the application of psychoanalytic knowledge; that is to say, knowledge drawn from the activity of the modern unconscious mind concerning specific historical material.

I must refer the reader entirely to the specified works, in order that he may gain information concerning the extent and the kind of insight which has already been obtained. The explanations are in many cases dubious in particulars; nevertheless, this detracts in no way from the total result. It would be significant enough if only the far-reaching analogy between the psychologic structure of the historical relics and the structure of the recent individual psychologic products alone were demonstrated. This proof is possible of attainment for every intelligent person through the work done up to this time. The analogy prevails especially in symbolism, as Riklin, Rank, Maeder, and Abraham have pointed out with illuminating examples; it is also shown in the individual mechanisms of unconscious work, that is to say in repression, condensation, etc., as Abraham explicitly shows.

INTRODUCTION 7

Up to the present time the psychoanalytic investigator has turned his interest chiefly to the analysis of the individual psychologic problems. It seems to me, however, that in the present state of affairs there is a more or less imperative demand for the psychoanalyst to broaden the analysis of the individual problems by a comparative study of historical material relating to them, just as Freud has already done in a masterly manner in his book on " Leonardo da Vinci." ° For, just as the psychoanalytic conceptions promote understanding of the historic psychologic creations, so reversedly historical materials can shed new light upon individual psychologic problems. These and similar considerations have caused me to turn my attention somewhat more to the historical, in the hope that, out of this, new insight into the foundations of individual psychology might be won.

Chapter I Concerning The Two Kinds Of Thinking

It is a well-known fact that one of the principles of analytic psychology is that the dream images are to be understood symbolically; that is to say, that they are not to be taken literally just as they are presented in sleep, but that behind them a hidden meaning has to be surmised. It is this ancient idea of a dream symbolism which has challenged not only criticism, but, in addition to that, the strongest opposition. That dreams may be full of import, and, therefore, something to be interpreted, is certainly neither a strange nor an extraordinary idea. This has been familiar to mankind for thousands of years, and, therefore, seems much like a banal truth. The dream interpretations of the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and the story of Joseph who interpreted Pharaoh's dreams, are known to every one, and the dream book of Artemidorus is also familiar. From countless inscribed monuments of all times and peoples we learn of foreboding dreams, of significant, of prophetic and also of curative dreams which the Deity sent to the sick, sleeping in the temple. We know the dream of the mother of Augustus, who dreamt she was to be with child by the Deity transformed into a snake. We will not heap up references and examples to bear witness to the existence of a belief in the symbolism of dreams. When an idea is so old, and is so generally believed, it is probably true in some way, and, indeed, as is mostly the case, is not literally true, but is true psychologically. In this distinction lies the reason why the old fogies of science have from time to time thrown away an inherited piece of ancient truth; because it was not literal but psychologic truth. For such discrimination this type of person has at no time had any comprehension.

From our experience, it is hardly conceivable that a God existing outside of ourselves causes dreams, or that the dream, eo ipso, foresees the future prophetically. When we translate this into the psychologic, however, then the ancient theories sound much more reconcilable, namely, the dream arises from a part of the mind unknown to us, but none the less important, and is concerned with the desires for the approaching day. This psychologic formula derived from the ancient superstitious conception of dreams, is, so to speak, exactly identified with the Freudian psychology, which assumes a rising wish from the unconscious to be the source of the dream.

As the old belief teaches, the Deity or the Demon speaks in symbolic speech to the sleeper, and the dream interpreter has the riddle to solve. In modern speech we say this means that the dream is a series of images, which are apparently contradictory and nonsensical, but arise in reality from psychologic material which yields a clear meaning.

Were I to suppose among my readers a far-reaching io PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

ignorance of dream analysis, then I should be obliged to illustrate this statement with numerous examples. Today, however, these things are quite well known, so that one must proceed carefully with every-day dream material, out of consideration for a public educated in these matters. It is a special inconvenience that no dream can be recounted without being obliged to add to it half a life's history which affords the individual foundations of the dream, but there are some few typical dreams which can be told without too great a ballast. One of these is the dream of the sexual assault, which is especially prevalent among women. A girl sleeping after an evening happily spent in dancing, dreams that a robber breaks open her door noisily and stabs through her body with a lance. This theme, which explains itself, has countless variations, some simple, some complicated. Instead of the lance it is a sword, a dagger, a revolver, a gun, a cannon, a hydrant, a watering pot; or the assault is a burglary, a pursuit, a robbery, or it is some one hidden in the closet or under the bed. Or the danger may be illustrated by wild animals; for instance, a horse which throws the dreamer to the ground and kicks her in the body with his hind foot; lions, tigers, elephants with threatening trunks, and finally snakes in endless variety. Sometimes the snake creeps into the mouth, sometimes it bites the breast like Cleopatra's legendary asp, sometimes it comes in the role of the paradisical snake, or in the variations of Franz Stuck, whose pictures of snakes bear the significant titles " Vice," " Sin," " Lust" The mixture of lust and anxiety is expressed incomparably in