Psychology of the Unconscious · Part IV

The Beacon[142]

“Here, where the island grew amid the seas, A sacrificial rock high-towering, Here under darkling heavens, Zarathustra lights his mountain-fires.

“These flames with grey-white belly, In cold distances sparkle their desire, Stretches its neck towards ever purer heights— A snake upreared in impatience:

“This signal I set up there before me. This flame is mine own soul, Insatiable for new distances, Speeding upward, upward its silent heat.

“At all lonely ones I now throw my fishing rod. Give answer to the flame’s impatience, Let me, the fisher on high mountains, Catch my seventh, last solitude!”

Here libido becomes fire, flame and snake. The Egyptian symbol of the “living disc of the sun,” the disc with the two entwining snakes, contains the combination of both the libido analogies. The disc of the sun with its fructifying warmth is analogous to the fructifying warmth of love. The comparison of the libido with sun and fire is in reality analogous.

There is also a “causative” element in it, for sun and fire as beneficent powers are objects of human love; for example, the sun-hero Mithra is called the “well-beloved.” In Nietzsche’s poem the comparison is also a causative one, but this time in a reversed sense. The comparison with the snake is unequivocally phallic, corresponding completely with the tendency in antiquity, which was to see in the symbol of the phallus the quintessence of life and fruitfulness. The phallus is the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker of miracles, and as such it received reverence everywhere. We have, therefore, three designating symbols of the libido: First, the comparison by analogy, as sun and fire. Second, the comparisons based on causative relations, as A: Object comparison. The libido is designated by its object, for example, the beneficent sun. B: The subject comparison, in which the libido is designated by its place of origin or by analogies of this, for example, by phallus or (analogous) snake.

To these two fundamental forms of comparison still a third is added, in which the “tertium comparationis” is the activity; for example, the libido is dangerous when fecundating like the bull—through the power of its passion—like the lion, like the raging boar when in heat, like the ever-rutting ass, and so on.

This activity comparison can belong equally well to the category of the analogous or to the category of the causative comparisons. The possibilities of comparison mean just as many possibilities for symbolic expression, and from this basis all the infinitely varied symbols, so far as they are libido images, may properly be reduced to a very simple root, that is, just to libido and its fixed primitive qualities. This psychologic reduction and simplification is in accordance with the historic efforts of civilization to unify and simplify, to syncretize, the endless number of the gods. We come across this desire as far back as the old Egyptians, where the unlimited polytheism as exemplified in the numerous demons of places finally necessitated simplification. All the various local gods, Amon of Thebes, Horus of Edfu, Horus of the East, Chnum of Elephantine, Atum of Heliopolis, and others,[143] became identified with the sun God Rê. In the hymns to the sun the composite being Amon-Rê-Harmachis-Atum was invoked as “the only god which truly lives.”[144]

Amenhotep IV (XVIII dynasty) went the furthest in this direction. He replaced all former gods by the “living great disc of the sun,” the official title reading:

“The sun ruling both horizons, triumphant in the horizon in his name; the glittering splendor which is in the sun’s disc.”

“And, indeed,” Erman adds,[145] “the sun, as a God, should not be honored, but the sun itself as a planet which imparts through its rays[146] the infinite life which is in it to all living creatures.”

Amenhotep IV by his reform completed a work which is psychologically important. He united all the bull,[147] ram,[148] crocodile[149] and pile-dwelling[150] gods into the disc of the sun, and made it clear that their various attributes were compatible with the sun’s attributes.[151] A similar fate overtook the Hellenic and Roman polytheism through the syncretistic efforts of later centuries. The beautiful prayer of Lucius[152] to the queen of the Heavens furnishes an important proof of this:

“Queen of Heaven, whether thou art the genial Ceres, the prime parent of fruits;—or whether thou art celestial Venus;—or whether thou art the sister of Phœbus;—or whether thou art Proserpina, terrific with midnight howlings—with that feminine brightness of thine illuminating the walls of every city.”[153]

This attempt to gather again into a few units the religious thoughts which were divided into countless variations and personified in individual gods according to their polytheistic distribution and separation makes clear the fact that already at an earlier time analogies had formally arisen. Herodotus is rich in just such references, not to mention the systems of the Hellenic-Roman world. Opposed to the endeavor to form a unity there stands a still stronger endeavor to create again and again a multiplicity, so that even in the so-called severe monotheistic religions, as Christianity, for example, the polytheistic tendency is irrepressible. The Deity is divided into three parts at least, to which is added the feminine Deity of Mary and the numerous company of the lesser gods, the angels and saints, respectively. These two tendencies are in constant warfare. There is only one God with countless attributes, or else there are many gods who are then simply known differently, according to locality, and personify sometimes this, sometimes that attribute of the fundamental thought, an example of which we have seen above in the Egyptian gods.

With this we turn once more to Nietzsche’s poem, “The Beacon.” We found the flame there used as an image of the libido, theriomorphically represented as a snake (also as an image of the soul:[154] “This flame is mine own soul”). We saw that the snake is to be taken as a phallic image of the libido (upreared in impatience), and that this image, also an attribute of the conception of the sun (the Egyptian sun idol), is an image of the libido in the combination of sun and phallus. It is not a wholly strange conception, therefore, that the sun’s disc is represented with a penis, as well as with hands and feet. We find proof for this idea in a peculiar part of the Mithraic liturgy: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ὁ καλούμενος αὐλός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τοῦ λειτουργοῦντος ἀνέμου. Ὄψει γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ δίσκου ὡς αὐλὸν κρεμάμενον.[155]

This extremely important vision of a tube hanging down from the sun would produce in a religious text, such as that of the Mithraic liturgy, a strange and at the same time meaningless effect if it did not have the phallic meaning. The tube is the place of origin of the wind. The phallic meaning seems very faint in this idea, but one must remember that the wind, as well as the sun, is a fructifier and creator. This has already been pointed out in a footnote.[156] There is a picture by a Germanic painter of the Middle Ages of the “conceptio immaculata” which deserves mention here. The conception is represented by a tube or pipe coming down from heaven and passing beneath the skirt of Mary. Into this flies the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove for the impregnation of the Mother of God.[157]

Honegger discovered the following hallucination in an insane man (paranoid dement): The patient sees in the sun an “upright tail” similar to an erected penis. When he moves his head back and forth, then, too, the sun’s penis sways back and forth in a like manner, and out of that the wind arises. This strange hallucination remained unintelligible to us for a long time until I became acquainted with the Mithraic liturgy and its visions. This hallucination threw an illuminating light, as it appears to me, upon a very obscure place in the text which immediately follows the passage previously cited:

εἰς δὲ τὰ μέρη τὰ πρὸς λίβα ἀπέραντον οἷον ἀπηλιώτην. Ἐὰν ᾖ κεκληρώμενος εἰς δὲ τὰ μέρη τοῦ ἀπηλιώτου ὁ ἕτερος, ὁμοίως εἰς τὰ μέρη τὰ ἐκείνου ὄψει τὴν ἀποφορὰν τοῦ ὁρμάτος.

Mead translates this very clearly:[158]

“And towards the regions westward, as though it were an infinite Eastwind. But if the other wind, towards the regions of the East, should be in service, in the like fashion shalt thou see towards the regions of that side the converse of the sight.”

In the original ὅραμα is the vision, the thing seen. ἀποφορά means properly the carrying away. The sense of the text, according to this, might be: the thing seen may be carried or turned sometimes here, sometimes there, according to the direction of the wind. The ὅραμα is the tube, “the place of origin of the wind,” which turns sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west, and, one might add, generates the corresponding wind. The vision of the insane man coincides astonishingly with this description of the movement of the tube.[159]

The various attributes of the sun, separated into a series, appear one after the other in the Mithraic liturgy. According to the vision of Helios, seven maidens appear with the heads of snakes, and seven gods with the heads of black bulls.

It is easy to understand the maiden as a symbol of the libido used in the sense of causative comparison. The snake in Paradise is usually considered as feminine, as the seductive principle in woman, and is represented as feminine by the old artists, although properly the snake has a phallic meaning. Through a similar change of meaning the snake in antiquity becomes the symbol of the earth, which on its side is always considered feminine. The bull is the well-known symbol for the fruitfulness of the sun. The bull gods in the Mithraic liturgy were called κνωθακοφύλακες, “guardians of the axis of the earth,” by whom the axle of the orb of the heavens was turned. The divine man, Mithra, also had the same attributes; he is sometimes called the “Sol invictus” itself, sometimes the mighty companion and ruler of Helios; he holds in his right hand the “bear constellation, which moves and turns the heavens.” The bull-headed gods, equally ἱεροὶ καὶ ἄλκιμοι νεανίαι with Mithra himself, to whom the attribute νεώτερος, “young one,” “the newcomer,” is given, are merely attributive components of the same divinity. The chief god of the Mithraic liturgy is himself subdivided into Mithra and Helios; the attributes of each of these are closely related to the other. Of Helios it is said: ὄψει θεὸν νεώτερον εὐειδῆ πυρινότριχα ἐν χιτῶνι λευκῷ καὶ χλαμύδι κοκκίνῃ, ἔχοντα πύρινον στέφανον.[160]

Of Mithra it is said: ὄψει θεὸν ὑπερμεγέθη, φωτινὴν ἔχοντα τὴν ὄψιν, νεώτερον, χρυσοκόμαν, ἐν χιτῶνι λευκῳ καὶ χρυσῳ στεφάνῳ καὶ ἀναξυρίσι, κατέχοντα τῇ δεξιᾷ χειρὶ μόσχου ὦμόν χρύσεον, ὅς ἐστιν ἄρκτος ἡ κινοῦσα καὶ ἀντιστρέφουσα τὸν οὐρανόν, κατὰ ὥραν ἀναπολεύουσα καὶ καταπολεύουσα. ἔπειτα ὄψει αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν ὀμμάτων ἀστραπὰς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ἀστέρας ἁλλομένους.[161]

If we place fire and gold as essentially similar, then a great accord is found in the attributes of the two gods. To these mystical pagan ideas there deserve to be added the probably almost contemporaneous vision of Revelation:

“And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the candlesticks[162] one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. And his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars,[163] and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword,[164] and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”—Rev. i: 12 ff.

“And I looked, and beheld a white cloud, and upon the cloud I saw one sitting like unto the son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.”[165]—Rev. xiv: 14.

“And his eyes were as a flame of fire, and upon his head were many diadems. And he was arrayed in a garment[166] sprinkled with blood.... And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,[167] white and pure. And out of his mouth proceeded a sharp sword.”—Rev. xix: 12–15.

One need not assume that there is a direct dependency between the Apocalypse and the Mithraic liturgy. The visionary images of both texts are developed from a source, not limited to one place, but found in the soul of many divers people, because the symbols which arise from it are too typical for it to belong to one individual only. I put these images here to show how the primitive symbolism of light gradually developed, with the increasing depth of the vision, into the idea of the sun-hero, the “well-beloved.”[168] The development of the symbol of light is thoroughly typical. In addition to this, perhaps I might call to mind the fact that I have previously pointed out this course with numerous examples,[169] and, therefore, I can spare myself the trouble of returning to this subject.[170] These visionary occurrences are the psychological roots of the sun-coronations in the mysteries. Its rite is religious hallucination congealed into liturgical form, which, on account of its great regularity, could become a generally accepted outer form. After all this, it is easily understood how the ancient Christian Church, on one side, stood in an especial bond to Christ as “sol novus,” and, on the other side, had a certain difficulty in freeing itself from the earthly symbols of Christ. Indeed Philo of Alexandria saw in the sun the image of the divine logos or of the Deity especially (“De Somniis,” 1:85). In an Ambrosian hymn Christ is invoked by “O sol salutis,” and so on. At the time of Marcus Aurelius, Meliton, in his work,[171] περὶ λούτρου, called Christ the Ἥλιος ἀνατολης ... μόνος ἥλιος οὗτος ἀνέτειλεν ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ.[172]

Still more important is a passage from Pseudo-Cyprian:[173]

“O quam præclara providentia ut illo die quo factus est sol, in ipso die nasceretur Christus, v. Kal. Apr. feria IV, et ideo de ipso ad plebem dicebat Malachias propheta: ‘Orietur vobis sol iustitiæ et curatio est in pennis ejus,’ hic est sol iustitiæ cuius in pennis curatio præostendebatur.”[174][175]

In a work nominally attributed to John Chrysostomus, “De Solstitiis et Aequinoctiis,”[176] occurs this passage:

“Sed et dominus nascitur mense Decembri hiemis tempore, VIII. Kal. Januarias, quando oleæ maturæ præmuntur ut unctio, id est Chrisma, nascatur—sed et Invicti natalem appellant. Quis utique tam invictus nisi dominus noster qui mortem subactam devicit? Vel quod dicant Solis esse natalem, ipse est sol iustitiæ, de quo Malachias propheta dixit: ‘Dominus lucis ac noctis conditor et discretor qui a propheta Sol iustitiæ cognominatus est.’”[177]

According to the testimony of Eusebius of Alexandria, the Christians also shared in the worship of the rising sun, which lasted into the fifth century:

οὐαῖ τοῖς προσκυνοῦσι τὸν ἥλιον καὶ τὴν σελήνην καὶ τοὺς ἀστέρας. Πολλοὺς γὰρ οἶδα τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας καὶ εὐχομένους εἰς τὸν ἥλιον. Ἤδη γὰρ ἀνατείλαντος τοῦ ἡλίου, προσεύχονται καὶ λέγουσιν “Ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς” καὶ οὐ μόνον Ἡλιογνώσται καὶ αἱρετικοὶ τοῦτο ποιοῦσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ χριστιανοὶ καὶ ἀφέντες τὴν πίστιν τοῖς αἱρετικοῖς συναμίγνυνται.[178]

Augustine preached emphatically to the Christians:

“Non est Dominus Sol factus sed per quem Sol factus est—ne quis carnaliter sapiens Solem istum (Christum) intelligendum putaret.”

Art has preserved much of the remnants of sun-worship,[179] thus the nimbus around the head of Christ and the halo of the saints in general. The Christian legends also attribute many fire and light symbols to the saints.[180] The twelve apostles, for example, are likened to the twelve signs of the zodiac, and are represented, therefore, with a star over the head.[181]

It is not to be wondered at that the heathen, as Tertullian avows, considered the sun as the Christian God. Among the Manichaeans God was really the sun. One of the most remarkable works extant, where the Pagan, Asiatic, Hellenic and Christian intermingle, is the Ἐξήγησις περὶ των ἐν Περσίδι πραχθέντων, edited by Wirth.[182] This is a book of fables, but, nevertheless, a mine for near-Christian phantasies, which gives a profound insight into Christian symbolism. In this is found the following magical dedication: Διὶ Ἡλίῳ θεῳ μεγάλῳ βασιλεῖ Ἰησοῦ—.[183] In certain parts of Armenia the rising sun is still worshipped by Christians, that “it may let its foot rest upon the faces of the worshippers.”[184] The foot occurs as an anthropomorphic attribute, and we have already met the theriomorphic attribute in the feathers and the sun phallus. Other comparisons of the sun’s ray, as knife, sword, arrow, and so on, have also, as we have learned from the psychology of the dream, a phallic meaning at bottom. This meaning is attached to the foot as I here point out,[185] and also to the feathers, or hair, of the sun, which signify the power or strength of the sun. I refer to the story of Samson, and to that of the Apocalypse of Baruch, concerning the phœnix bird, which, flying before the sun, loses its feathers, and, exhausted, is strengthened again in an ocean bath at evening.

Under the symbol of “moth and sun” we have dug down into the historic depths of the soul, and in doing this we have uncovered an old buried idol, the youthful, beautiful, fire-encircled and halo-crowned sun-hero, who, forever unattainable to the mortal, wanders upon the earth, causing night to follow day; winter, summer; death, life; and who returns again in rejuvenated splendor and gives light to new generations. The longing of the dreamer concealed behind the moth stands for him.

The ancient pre-Asiatic civilizations were acquainted with a sun-worship having the idea of a God dying and rising again (Osiris, Tammuz, Attis-Adonis),[186] Christ, Mithra and his bull,[187] Phœnix and so on. The beneficent power as well as the destroying power was worshipped in fire. The forces of nature always have two sides, as we have already seen in the God of Job. This reciprocal bond brings us back once more to Miss Miller’s poem. Her reminiscences support our previous supposition, that the symbol of moth and sun is a condensation of two ideas, about one of which we have just spoken; the other is the moth and the flame. As the title of a play, about the contents of which the author tells us absolutely nothing, “Moth and Flame” may easily have the well-known erotic meaning of flying around the flame of passion until one’s wings are burned. The passionate longing, that is to say, the libido, has its two sides; it is power which beautifies everything, and which under other circumstances destroys everything. It often appears as if one could not accurately understand in what the destroying quality of the creative power consists. A woman who gives herself up to passion, particularly under the present-day condition of culture, experiences the destructive side only too soon. One has only to imagine one’s self a little away from the every-day moral conditions in order to understand what feelings of extreme insecurity overwhelm the individual who gives himself unconditionally over to Fate.

To be fruitful means, indeed, to destroy one’s self, because with the rise of the succeeding generation the previous one has passed beyond its highest point; thus our descendants are our most dangerous enemies, whom we cannot overcome, for they will outlive us, and, therefore, without fail, will take the power from our enfeebled hands. The anxiety in the face of the erotic fate is wholly understandable, for there is something immeasurable therein. Fate usually hides unknown dangers, and the perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to venture upon life is easily explained by his desire to be allowed to stand still, so as not to take part in the dangerous battle of life.[188] Whoever renounces the chance to experience must stifle in himself the wish for it, and, therefore, commits a sort of self-murder. From this the death phantasies which readily accompany the renunciation of the erotic wish are made clear. In the poem Miss Miller has voiced these phantasies.

She adds further to the material with the following:

“I had been reading a selection from one of Byron’s poems which pleased me very much and made a deep and lasting impression. Moreover, the rhythm of my last two verses, ‘For I the source, etc.,’ and the two lines of Byron’s are very similar.

‘Now let me die as I have lived in faith, Nor tremble though the universe should quake.’”

This reminiscence with which the series of ideas is closed confirms the death phantasies which follow from renunciation of the erotic wish. The quotation comes—which Miss Miller did not mention—from an uncompleted poem of Byron’s called “Heaven and Earth.”[189] The whole verse follows:

“Still blessed be the Lord, For what is passed, For that which is; For all are His, From first to last— Time—Space—Eternity—Life—Death— The vast known and immeasurable unknown He made and can unmake, And shall I for a little gasp of breath Blaspheme and groan? No, let me die as I have lived in faith, Nor quiver though the universe may quake!”

The words are included in a kind of praise or prayer, spoken by a “mortal” who is in hopeless flight before the mounting deluge. Miss Miller puts herself in the same situation in her quotation; that is to say, she readily lets it be seen that her feeling is similar to the despondency of the unhappy ones who find themselves hard pressed by the threatening mounting waters of the deluge. With this the writer allows us a deep look into the dark abyss of her longing for the sun-hero. We see that her longing is in vain; she is a mortal, only for a short time borne upwards into the light by means of the highest longing, and then sinking to death, or, much more, urged upwards by the fear of death, like the people before the deluge, and in spite of the desperate conflict, irretrievably given over to destruction. This is a mood which recalls vividly the closing scene in “Cyrano de Bergerac”:[190]

Cyrano:

Oh, mais ... puisqu’elle est en chemin, Je l’attendrai debout ... et l’épée à la main.

Que dites-vous?... C’est inutile? Je le sais. Mais on ne se bat pas dans l’espoir du succès. Non, non. C’est bien plus beau lorsque c’est inutile.

Je sais bien qu’à la fin vous me mettrez à bas....

We already know sufficiently well what longing and what impulse it is that attempts to clear a way for itself to the light, but that it may be realized quite clearly and irrevocably, it is shown plainly in the quotation “No, let me die,” which confirms and completes all earlier remarks. The divine, the “much-beloved,” who is honored in the image of the sun, is also the goal of the longing of our poet.

Byron’s “Heaven and Earth” is a mystery founded on the following passage from Genesis, chapter vi:2: “And it came to pass ... that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all that they chose.” Byron offers as a further motif for his poem the following passage from Coleridge: “And woman wailing for her Demon lover.” Byron’s poem is concerned with two great events, one psychologic and one telluric; the passion which throws down all barriers; and all the terrors of the unchained powers of nature: a parallel which has already been introduced into our earlier discussion. The angels Samiasa and Azaziel burn with sinful love for the beautiful daughters of Cain, Anah and Aholibama, and force a way through the barrier which is placed between mortal and immortal. They revolt as Lucifer once did against God, and the archangel Raphael raises his voice warningly:

“But man hath listened to his voice And ye to woman’s—beautiful she is, The serpent’s voice less subtle than her kiss. The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw A second host from heaven to break heaven’s law.”

The power of God is threatened by the seduction of passion; a second fall of angels menaces heaven. Let us translate this mythologic projection back into the psychologic, from whence it originated. Then it would read: the power of the good and reasonable ruling the world wisely is threatened by the chaotic primitive power of passion; therefore passion must be exterminated; that is to say, projected into mythology. The race of Cain and the whole sinful world must be destroyed from the roots by the deluge. It is the inevitable result of that sinful passion which has broken through all barriers. Its counterpart is the sea and the waters of the deep and the floods of rain,[191] the generating, fructifying and “maternal waters,” as the Indian mythology refers to them. Now they leave their natural bounds and surge over the mountain tops, engulfing all living things; for passion destroys itself. The libido is God and Devil. With the destruction of the sinfulness of the libido an essential portion of the libido would be destroyed. Through the loss of the Devil, God himself suffered a considerable loss, somewhat like an amputation upon the body of the Divinity. The mysterious hint in Raphael’s lament concerning the two rebels, Samiasa and Azaziel, suggests this.

“... Why, Cannot this earth be made, or be destroyed, Without involving ever some vast void In the immortal ranks?...”

Love raises man, not only above himself, but also above the bounds of his mortality and earthliness, up to divinity itself, and in the very act of raising him it destroys him. Mythologically, this self-presumption finds its striking expression in the building of the heaven-high tower of Babel, which brings confusion to mankind.[192] In Byron’s poem it is the sinful ambition of the race of Cain, for love of which it makes even the stars subservient and leads away the sons of God themselves. If, indeed, longing for the highest things—if I may speak so—is legitimate, then it lies in the circumstances that it leaves its human boundaries, that of sinfulness, and, therefore, destruction. The longing of the moth for the star is not absolutely pure and transparent, but glows in sultry mist, for man continues to be man. Through the excess of his longing he draws down the divine into the corruption of his passion;[193] therefore, he seems to raise himself to the Divine; but with that his humanity is destroyed. Thus the love of Anah and Aholibama for their angels becomes the ruin of gods and men. The invocation with which Cain’s daughters implore their angels is psychologically an exact parallel to Miss Miller’s poem.

Anah:[194]

Seraph! From thy sphere! Whatever star[195] contains thy glory.

In the eternal depths of heaven Albeit thou watchest with the ‘seven,’ Though through space infinite and hoary Before thy bright wings worlds will be driven,

Yet hear! Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!

And though she nothing is to thee, Yet think that thou art all to her.

· · · · ·

Eternity is in thy years, Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes; With me thou canst not sympathize, Except in love, and there thou must Acknowledge that more loving dust Ne’er wept beneath the skies. Thou walkest thy many worlds,[196] thou seest The face of him who made thee great, As he hath made of me the least Of those cast out from Eden’s gate;

Yet, Seraph, dear! Oh hear! For thou hast loved me, and I would not die Until I know what I must die in knowing, That thou forgettest in thine eternity Her whose heart death could not keep from o’erflowing For thee, immortal essence as thou art,[197] Great is their love who love in sin and fear; And such, I feel, are waging in my heart A war unworthy: to an Adamite Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear. For sorrow is our element....

· · · · ·

The hour is near Which tells me we are not abandoned quite. Appear! Appear! Seraph! My own Azaziel! be but here, And leave the stars to their own light.

Aholibama:

I call thee, I await thee and I love thee.

· · · · ·

Though I be formed of clay, And thou of beams[198] More bright than those of day on Eden’s streams, Thine immortality cannot repay With love more warm than mine My love. There is a ray[199] In me, which though forbidden yet to shine, I feel was lighted at thy God’s and mine.[200] It may be hidden long: death and decay Our mother Eve bequeathed us—but my heart Defies it: though this life must pass away, Is that a cause for thee and me to part?

· · · · ·

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow; For thou hast ventured to share life with me, And shall I shrink from thine eternity? No, though the serpent’s sting[201] should pierce me through, And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil Around me still.[202] And I will smile And curse thee not, but hold Thee in as warm a fold As—but descend and prove A mortal’s love For an immortal....

The apparition of both angels which follows the invocation is, as always, a shining vision of light.

Aholibama:

The clouds from off their pinions flinging As though they bore to-morrow’s light.

Anah:

But if our father see the sight!

Aholibama:

He would but deem it was the moon Rising unto some sorcerer’s tune An hour too soon.

· · · · ·

Anah:

Lo! They have kindled all the west, Like a returning sunset.... On Ararat’s late secret crest A wild and many colored bow, The remnant of their flashing path, Now shines!...

At the sight of this many-colored vision of light, where both women are entirely filled with desire and expectation, Anah makes use of a simile full of presentiment, which suddenly allows us to look down once more into the dismal dark depths, out of which for a moment the terrible animal nature of the mild god of light emerges.

“... and now, behold! it hath Returned to night, as rippling foam, Which the leviathan hath lashed From his unfathomable home, When sporting on the face of the calm deep, Subsides soon after he again hath dash’d Down, down to where the ocean’s fountains sleep.”

Thus like the leviathan! We recall this overpowering weight in the scale of God’s justice in regard to the man Job. There, where the deep sources of the ocean are, the leviathan lives; from there the all-destroying flood ascends, the all-engulfing flood of animal passion. That stifling, compressing feeling[203] of the onward-surging impulse is projected mythologically as a flood which, rising up and over all, destroys all that exists, in order to allow a new and better creation to come forth from this destruction.

Japhet:

The eternal will Shall deign to expound this dream Of good and evil; and redeem Unto himself all times, all things;

And, gather’d under his almighty wings, Abolish hell! And to the expiated Earth Restore the beauty of her birth.

Spirits:

And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?

Japhet:

When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain And then in glory.

Spirits:

New times, new climes, new arts, new men, but still The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill, Shall be amongst your race in different forms; But the same mortal storms Shall oversweep the future, as the waves In a few hours the glorious giants’ graves.

The prophetic visions of Japhet have almost prophetic meaning for our poetess; with the death of the moth in the light, evil is once more laid aside; the complex has once again, even if in a censored form, expressed itself. With that, however, the problem is not solved; all sorrow and every longing begins again from the beginning, but there is “Promise in the Air”—the premonition of the Redeemer, of the “Well-beloved,” of the Sun-hero, who again mounts to the height of the sun and again descends to the coldness of the winter, who is the light of hope from race to race, the image of the libido.

PART II

CHAPTER I ASPECTS OF THE LIBIDO

Before I enter upon the contents of this second part, it seems necessary to cast a backward glance over the singular train of thought which the analysis of the poem “The Moth to the Sun” has produced. Although this poem is very different from the foregoing Hymn of Creation, closer investigation of the “longing for the sun” has carried us into the realm of the fundamental ideas of religion and astral mythology, which ideas are closely related to those considered in the first poem. The creative God of the first poem, whose dual nature, moral and physical, was shown especially clearly to us by Job, has in the second poem a new qualification of astral-mythological, or, to express it better, of astrological character. The God becomes the sun, and in this finds an adequate natural expression quite apart from the moral division of the God idea into the heavenly father and the devil. The sun is, as Renan remarked, really the only rational representation of God, whether we take the point of view of the barbarians of other ages or that of the modern physical sciences. In both cases the sun is the parent God, mythologically predominantly the Father God, from whom all living things draw life; He is the fructifier and creator of all that lives, the source of energy of our world. The discord into which the soul of man has fallen through the action of moral laws[204] can be resolved into complete harmony through the sun as the natural object which obeys no human moral law. The sun is not only beneficial, but also destructive; therefore the zodiacal representation of the August heat is the herd-devouring lion whom the Jewish hero Samson[205] killed in order to free the parched earth from this plague. Yet it is the harmonious and inherent nature of the sun to scorch, and its scorching power seems natural to men. It shines equally on the just and on the unjust, and allows useful living objects to flourish as well as harmful ones. Therefore, the sun is adapted as is nothing else to represent the visible God of this world. That is to say, that driving strength of our own soul, which we call libido, and whose nature it is to allow the useful and injurious, the good and the bad to proceed. That this comparison is no mere play of words is taught us by the mystics. When by looking inwards (introversion) and going down into the depths of their own being they find “in their heart” the image of the Sun, they find their own love or libido, which with reason, I might say with physical reason, is called the Sun; for our source of energy and life is the Sun. Thus our life substance, as an energic process, is entirely Sun. Of what special sort this “Sun energy” seen inwardly by the mystic is, is shown by an example taken from the Hindoo mythology.[206] From the explanation of Part III of the “Shvetâshvataropanishad” we take the following quotation, which relates to the Rudra:[207]

(2) “Yea, the one Rudra who all these worlds with ruling power doth rule, stands not for any second. Behind those that are born he stands; at ending time ingathers all the worlds he hath evolved, protector (he).

(3) “He hath eyes on all sides, on all sides surely hath faces, arms surely on all sides, on all sides feet. With arms, with wings he tricks them out, creating heaven and earth, the only God.

(4) “Who of the gods is both the source and growth, the Lord of all, the Rudra. Mighty seer; who brought the shining germ of old into existence—may he with reason pure conjoin us.”[208]

These attributes allow us clearly to discern the all-creator and in him the Sun, which has wings and with a thousand eyes scans the world.[209]

The following passages confirm the text and join to it the idea most important for us, that God is also contained in the individual creature:

(7) “Beyond this (world) the Brahman beyond, the mighty one, in every creature hid according to its form, the one encircling Lord of all, Him having known, immortal they become.

(8) “I know this mighty man, Sun-like, beyond the darkness, Him (and him) only knowing, one crosseth over death; no other path (at all) is there to go.

(11) “... spread over the universe is He the Lord therefore as all-pervader, He’s benign.”

The powerful God, the equal of the Sun, is in that one, and whoever knows him is immortal.[210] Going on further with the text, we come upon a new attribute, which informs us in what form and manner Rudra lived in men.

(12) “The mighty monarch, He, the man, the one who doth the essence start towards that peace of perfect stainlessness, lordly, exhaustless light.

(13) “The Man, the size of a thumb, the inner self, sits ever in the heart of all that’s born, by mind, mind ruling in the heart, is He revealed. That they who know, immortal they become.

(14) “The Man of the thousands of heads (and) thousands of eyes (and) thousands of feet, covering the earth on all sides, He stands beyond, ten finger-breadths.

(15) “The Man is verily this all, (both) what has been and what will be, Lord (too) of deathlessness which far all else surpasses.”

Important parallel quotations are to be found in the “Kathopanishad,” section 2, part 4.

(12) “The Man of the size of a thumb, resides in the midst within the self, of the past and the future, the Lord.

(13) “The Man of the size of a thumb like flame free from smoke, of past and of future the Lord, the same is to-day, to-morrow the same will He be.”

Who this Tom-Thumb is can easily be divined—the phallic symbol of the libido. The phallus is this hero dwarf, who performs great deeds; he, this ugly god in homely form, who is the great doer of wonders, since he is the visible expression of the creative strength incarnate in man. This extraordinary contrast is also very striking in “Faust” (the mother scene):

Mephistopheles:

I’ll praise thee ere we separate: I see Thou knowest the devil thoroughly: Here take this key.

Faust:

That little thing!

Mephistopheles:

Take hold of it, not undervaluing!

Faust:

It glows, it shines, increases in my hand!

Mephistopheles:

How much it is worth, thou soon shalt understand, The key will scent the true place from all others! Follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers![211]

Here the devil again puts into Faust’s hand the marvellous tool, a phallic symbol of the libido, as once before in the beginning the devil, in the form of the black dog, accompanied Faust, when he introduced himself with the words:

“Part of that power, not understood, Which always wills the bad and always creates the good.”

United to this strength, Faust succeeded in accomplishing his real life task, at first through evil adventure and then for the benefit of humanity, for without the evil there is no creative power. Here in the mysterious mother scene, where the poet unveils the last mystery of the creative power to the initiated, Faust has need of the phallic magic wand (in the magic strength of which he has at first no confidence), in order to perform the greatest of wonders, namely, the creation of Paris and Helen. With that Faust attains the divine power of working miracles, and, indeed, only by means of this small, insignificant instrument. This paradoxical impression seems to be very ancient, for even the Upanishads could say the following of the dwarf god:

(19) “Without hands, without feet, He moveth, He graspeth: Eyeless He seeth, (and) earless He heareth: He knoweth what is to be known, yet is there no knower of Him. Him call the first, mighty the Man.

(20) “Smaller than small, (yet) greater than great in the heart of this creature the self doth repose ... etc.”

The phallus is the being, which moves without limbs, which sees without eyes, which knows the future; and as symbolic representative of the universal creative power existent everywhere immortality is vindicated in it. It is always thought of as entirely independent, an idea current not only in antiquity, but also apparent in the pornographic drawings of our children and artists. It is a seer, an artist and a worker of wonders; therefore it should not surprise us when certain phallic characteristics are found again in the mythological seer, artist and sorcerer. Hephaestus, Wieland the smith, and Mani, the founder of Manicheism, whose followers were also famous, have crippled feet. The ancient seer Melampus possessed a suggestive name (Blackfoot),[212] and it seems also to be typical for seers to be blind. Dwarfed stature, ugliness and deformity have become especially typical for those mysterious chthonian gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the Cabiri,[213] to whom great power to perform miracles was ascribed. The name signifies “powerful,” and the Samothracian cult is most intimately united with that of the ithyphallic Hermes, who, according to the account of Herodotus, was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. They are also called μεγάλοι θεοί, the great gods. Their near relations are the “Idaean dactyli” (finger or Idaean thumb),[214] to whom the mother of the gods had taught the blacksmith’s art. (“The key will scent the true place from all others! follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers!”) They were the first leaders, the teachers of Orpheus, and invented the Ephesian magic formulas and the musical rhythms.[215] The characteristic disparity which is shown above in the Upanishad text, and in “Faust,” is also found here, since the gigantic Hercules passed as an Idaean dactyl.

The colossal Phrygians, the skilled servants of Rhea,[216] were also Dactyli. The Babylonian teacher of wisdom, Oannes,[217] was represented in a phallic fish form.[218] The two sun heroes, the Dioscuri, stand in relation to the Cabiri;[219] they also wear the remarkable pointed head-covering (Pileus) which is peculiar to these mysterious gods,[220] and which is perpetuated from that time on as a secret mark of identification. Attis (the elder brother of Christ) wears the pointed cap, just as does Mithra. It has also become traditional for our present-day chthonian infantile gods,[221] the brownies (Penates), and all the typical kind of dwarfs. Freud[222] has already called our attention to the phallic meaning of the hat in modern phantasies. A further significance is that probably the pointed cap represents the foreskin. In order not to go too far afield from my theme, I must be satisfied here merely to present the suggestion. But at a later opportunity I shall return to this point with detailed proof.

The dwarf form leads to the figure of the divine boy, the puer eternus, the young Dionysus, Jupiter Anxurus, Tages,[223] and so on. In the vase painting of Thebes, already mentioned, a bearded Dionysus is represented as ΚΑΒΕΙΡΟΣ, together with a figure of a boy as Παῖς, followed by a caricatured boy’s figure designated as ΠΡΑΤΟΛΑΟΣ and then again a caricatured man, which is represented as ΜΙΤΟΣ.[224] Μίτος really means thread, but in orphic speech it stands for semen. It was conjectured that this collection corresponded to a group of statuary in the sanctuary of a cult. This supposition is supported by the history of the cult as far as it is known; it is an original Phœnician cult of father and son;[225] of an old and young Cabir who were more or less assimilated with the Grecian gods. The double figures of the adult and the child Dionysus lend themselves particularly to this assimilation. One might also call this the cult of the large and small man. Now, under various aspects, Dionysus is a phallic god in whose worship the phallus held an important place; for example, in the cult of the Argivian Bull—Dionysus. Moreover, the phallic herme of the god has given occasion for a personification of the phallus of Dionysus, in the form of the god Phales, who is nothing else but a Priapus. He is called ἑταῖρος or σύγκωμος Βάκχου[226].[227] Corresponding to this state of affairs, one cannot very well fail to recognize in the previously mentioned Cabiric representation, and in the added boy’s figure, the picture of man and his penis.[228] The previously mentioned paradox in the Upanishad text of large and small, of giant and dwarf, is expressed more mildly here by man and boy, or father and son.[229] The motive of deformity which is used constantly by the Cabiric cult is present also in the vase picture, while the parallel figures to Dionysus and Παῖς are the caricatured Μίτος and Πρατόλαος. Just as formerly the difference in size gave occasion for division, so does the deformity here.[230]

Without first bringing further proof to bear, I may remark that from this knowledge especially strong sidelights are thrown upon the original psychologic meaning of the religious heroes. Dionysus stands in an intimate relation with the psychology of the early Asiatic God who died and rose again from the dead and whose manifold manifestations have been brought together in the figure of Christ into a firm personality enduring for centuries. We gain from our premise the knowledge that these heroes, as well as their typical fates, are personifications of the human libido and its typical fates. They are imagery, like the figures of our nightly dreams—the actors and interpreters of our secret thoughts. And since we, in the present day, have the power to decipher the symbolism of dreams and thereby surmise the mysterious psychologic history of development of the individual, so a way is here opened to the understanding of the secret springs of impulse beneath the psychologic development of races. Our previous trains of thought, which demonstrate the phallic side of the symbolism of the libido, also show how thoroughly justified is the term “libido.”[231] Originally taken from the sexual sphere, this word has become the most frequent technical expression of psychoanalysis, for the simple reason that its significance is wide enough to cover all the unknown and countless manifestations of the Will in the sense of Schopenhauer. It is sufficiently comprehensive and rich in meaning to characterize the real nature of the psychical entity which it includes. The exact classical significance of the word libido qualifies it as an entirely appropriate term. Libido is taken in a very wide sense in Cicero:[232]

“(Volunt ex duobus opinatis) bonis (nasci) Libidinem et Lætitiam; ut sit lætitia præsentium bonorum: libido futurorum.—Lætitia autem et Libido in bonorum opinione versantur, cum Libido ad id, quod videtur bonum, illecta et inflammata rapiatur.—Natura enim omnes ea, quæ bona videntur, sequuntur, fugiuntque contraria. Quamobrem simul objecta species cuiuspiam est, quod bonum videatur, ad id adipiscendum impellit ipsa natura. Id cum constanter prudenterque fit, ejusmodi appetitionem stoici βούλησιν appellant, nos appellamus voluntatem; eam illi putant in solo esse sapiente, quam sic definiunt; voluntas est quæ quid cum ratione desiderat: quæ autem ratione adversa incitata est vehementius, ea libido est, vel cupiditas effrenata, quæ in omnibus stultis invenitur.”[233]

The meaning of libido here is “to wish,” and in the stoical distinction of will, dissolute desire. Cicero[234] used “libido” in a corresponding sense:

“Agere rem aliquam libidine, non ratione.”[235]

In the same sense Sallust says:

“Iracundia pars est libidinis.”

In another place in a milder and more general sense, which completely approaches the analytical use:

“Magisque in decoris armis et militaribus equis, quam in scortis et conviviis libidinem habebant.”[235]

Also:

“Quod si tibi bona libido fuerit patriæ, etc.”

The use of libido is so general that the phrase “libido est scire” merely had the significance of “I will, it pleases me.” In the phrase “aliquam libido urinæ lacessit” libido had the meaning of urgency. The significance of sexual desire is also present in the classics.

This general classical application of the conception agrees with the corresponding etymological context of the word, libido or lubido (with libet, more ancient lubet), it pleases me, and libens or lubens gladly, willingly. Sanskrit, lúbhyati to experience violent longing, lôbhayati excites longing, lubdha-h eager, lôbha-h longing, eagerness. Gothic liufs, and Old High German liob love. Moreover, in Gothic, lubains was represented as hope; and Old High German, lobôn to praise, lob commendation, praise, glory; Old Bulgarian, ljubiti to love, ljuby love; Lithuanian, liáupsinti to praise.[236] It can be said that the conception of libido as developed in the new work of Freud and of his school has functionally the same significance in the biological territory as has the conception of energy since the time of Robert Mayer in the physical realm.[237] It may not be superfluous to say something more at this point concerning the conception of libido after we have followed the formation of its symbol to its highest expression in the human form of the religious hero.

CHAPTER II THE CONCEPTION AND THE GENETIC THEORY OF LIBIDO

The chief source of the history of the analytic conception of libido is Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.” There the term libido is conceived by him in the original narrow sense of sexual impulse, sexual need. Experience forces us to the assumption of a capacity for displacement of the libido, because functions or localizations of non-sexual force are undoubtedly capable of taking up a certain amount of libidinous sexual impetus, a libidinous afflux.[238] Functions or objects could, therefore, obtain sexual value, which under normal circumstances really have nothing to do with sexuality.[239] From this fact results the Freudian comparison of the libido with a stream, which is divisible, which can be dammed up, which overflows into branches, and so on.[240] Freud’s original conception does not interpret “everything sexual,” although this has been asserted by critics, but recognizes the existence of certain forces, the nature of which are not well known; to which Freud, however, compelled by the notorious facts which are evident to any layman, grants the capacity to receive “affluxes of libido.” The hypothetical idea at the basis is the symbol of the “Triebbündel”[241] (bundle of impulses), wherein the sexual impulse figures as a partial impulse of the whole system, and its encroachment into the other realms of impulse is a fact of experience. The theory of Freud, branching off from this interpretation, according to which the motor forces of a neurotic system correspond precisely to their libidinous additions to other (non-sexual) functional impulses, has been sufficiently proven as correct, it seems to me, by the work of Freud and his school.[242] Since the appearance of the “Three Contributions,” in 1905, a change has taken place[243] in the libido conception; its field of application has been widened. An extremely clear example of this amplification is this present work. However, I must state that Freud, as well as myself, saw the need of widening the conception of libido. It was paranoia, so closely related to dementia præcox, which seemed to compel Freud to enlarge the earlier limits of the conception. The passage in question, which I will quote here, word for word, reads:[244]

“A third consideration which presents itself, in regard to the views developed here, starts the query as to whether we should accept as sufficiently effectual the universal receding of the libido from the outer world, in order to interpret from that, the end of the world: or whether in this case, the firmly rooted possession of the ‘I’ must not suffice to uphold the rapport with the outer world. Then one must either let that which we call possession of the libido (interest from erotic sources) coincide with interest in general, or else take into consideration the possibility that great disturbance in the disposition of the libido can also induce a corresponding disturbance in the possession of the ‘I.’ Now, these are the problems, which we are still absolutely helpless and unfitted to answer. Things would be different could we proceed from a safe fund of knowledge of instinct. But the truth is, we have nothing of that kind at our disposal. We understand instinct as the resultant of the reaction of the somatic and the psychic. We see in it the psychical representation of organic forces and take the popular distinction between the ‘I’ impulse and the sexual impulse, which appears to us to be in accord with the biological double rôle of the individual being who aspires to his own preservation as well as to the preservation of the species. But anything beyond this is a structure, which we set up, and also willingly let fall again in order to orient ourselves in the confusion of the dark processes of the soul; we expect particularly, from the psychoanalytic investigations into diseased soul processes, to have certain decisions forced upon us in regard to questions of the theory of instinct. This expectation has not yet been fulfilled on account of the still immature and limited investigations in these fields. At present the possibility of the reaction of libido disturbance upon the possession of the ‘I’ can be shown as little as the reverse; the secondary or induced disturbances of the libido processes through abnormal changes in the ‘I.’ It is probable that processes of this sort form the distinctive character of the psychoses. The conclusions arising from this, in relation to paranoia, are at present uncertain. One cannot assert that the paranoiac has completely withdrawn his interest from the outer world, nor withdrawn into the heights of repression, as one sometimes sees in certain other forms of hallucinatory psychoses. He takes notice of the outer world, he takes account of its changes, he is stirred to explanations by their influence, and therefore I consider it highly probable that the changed relation to the world is to be explained, wholly or in great part, by the deficiency of the libido interest.”