22 June 1932 Visions Seminar Lecture VII

I did not finish answering Miss Hannah’s question last time.

It was a very general question concerning the individual psychological development,

yet it has to do with the things we are continually dealing with, and particularly now-the last vision with the symbol of the crucifixion contains this problem.

I will repeat that part of the question: “The same idea seems to be expressed in the crucifixion of the ego. Only somehow it gives me a queer, lopsided feeling that the human being should have to take up and accept every thread of his personal fate in order to lose it in a wholly impersonal, universally valid fate, as if one opposite had triumphed after all.”

You see, the question is whether our present life might be quite futile in a way, and only serve the impersonal end of our being, everything personal devoured by an impersonal goal.

As long as you are living mainly the personal life, then sure enough your immediate goal is to assimilate everything that is personal and to live it as well as you can.

To dream of having any impersonal life or fate would be like discussing the life of the last human beings on earth, or the fate of the earth when the sun gets cold, which is so far out of our reach that it is hardly worthwhile speculating about it-it would be no

more than a possibly interesting conversation.

Yet many people are just in that period of life when the question of the impersonal life becomes urgent, and if they are not aware of it, they become neurotic without knowing why.

As soon as they understand that peculiar kind of psychology growing within them, they get out of the dissociation, which is caused by the non understanding of a new way of living.

The impersonal life begins to grow first in the unconscious, and it slowly undermines the personal life, complicates it or makes it unsatisfactory, and the more one hesitates to understand and accept it, the more one becomes neurotic.

When, however, one is beyond the personal, when one foot is, as it were, in another type of living, the aim of such a life can be discussed with more intelligence and with a better result.

Then one knows by experience that the impersonal life is more satisfactory, and one no longer has that lopsided feeling.

Of course, if there is still a lot of personal stuff to be digested, things that have not come off yet and which ought to be tackled, one will feel complete only in the personal pursuit.

But the moment they are accomplished, and the impersonal life begins to stir, one understands that the personal life has been a mere preparation for the impersonal living; then the impersonal life assimilates the personal life, as if integrating it into a wider or more differentiated consciousness.

So this question must be asked out of a condition in which the personal life has not been accomplished to such an extent that the impersonal life would make sense.

The impersonal life is just as self-evident and as satisfactory and reasonable when one has accomplished enough on the personal side.

Of course, it is unavoidable that we should speak of problems which are not necessarily the personal problems of every member of the seminar; you are on very different levels, at very different stages.

But we must discuss the whole of human life, as far as we know it, so we cannot avoid talking of the psychology which belongs to a time of life that some of you have not yet reached.

If we discuss the problems of childhood, you are no longer there-at least not altogether!-and if we discuss the problems of people who have lived a full life for fifty or sixty years, you are not yet there, so naturally you cannot feel it, it is strange to you.

It is quite futile to talk to young people of the psychology of the afternoon of life; one can only say: “Wait until you are forty and then you will see how it feels.”

One must occasionally paint a picture of life which is ahead of you, though to speak of it as a goal seems to you strange and awful.

You must not forget that this picture of a life is not to be imitated or assimilated now; you have to live through all those years of life that lead up to it, to assimilate all the stages in between.

When you are there, you will be up to it. It is as if I were telling you the story of people who · were climbing Mount Everest.

Naturally you say: “But that is awful, then we ought to be already supplied with oxygen.”

Of course it would be perfectly ridiculous to wear masks and go about with icepicks and oxygen apparatus, because you do not need them now; even if you plan to make such an ascent, you have to store them away until you have reached the level of seven thousand meters at least.

Now here are questions from Mrs. Case.

The first one is: “Will you please say a word about that intensification of consciousness which you call individuation?”

First of all, individuation is not an intensification of consciousness, it is very much more.

For you must have the consciousness of something before it can be intensified, and that means experience, life lived.

You can only be really conscious of things which you have experienced, so individuation must be understood as life.

Only life integrates, only life and what we do in life makes the individual appear.

You cannot individuate, for instance, by locking yourself up in a cell, you can only individuate in your concrete life, you appear in your deed; there you can individuate and nowhere else.

Real consciousness can only be based upon life, upon things experienced, but talking about these things is just air.

It is a sort of conscious understanding, but it is not individuation. Individuation is the accomplishment through life.

For instance, say a cell begins to divide itself and to differentiate and develop into a certain plant or a certain animal; that is the process of individuation.

It is that one becomes what one is, that one accomplishes one’s destiny, all the determinations that are given in the form of the germ; it is the unfolding of the germ and becoming the primitive pattern that one was born with.

Another question is: “Should we consider it as a preparation for a hypothetical life after death, an end in itself (insofar as life on earth is concerned)?”

Individuation is not to be considered as a preparation.

Individuation is the law of your life, life in every stage is it, and it is not to be understood as a preparation.

Life is an eternal cycle, it is in every moment-there are always people dying or being born and people living.

So one really could not say that individuation was a preparation, it is also the real end; it is both the beginning and the end of life, it is the process of life itself.

To consider life as a preparation for a hypothetical life after death would mean that life was nothing in itself, that the life after death was the real thing, which is perfectly preposterous.

If there is a life after death, that is included in this life; then the life after death would be again a mere preparation for the life here on earth, it would belong in that cycle.

The idea that life begins with the birth of a child and ends at the death of the individual describes the complete biological cycle.

But it makes no difference whether one includes the forty nine days of the Bardo, the interregnum in death as the Lamas  believe several centuries or several thousand years of timelessness and then the return again-that makes no difference, it is an eternal static fact, it is the real condition of life; everything that lives is individual, otherwise it does not exist at all.

So it means the condition of the individual that is in the state of being born, in the state of dying, in the state of living, in the state of not being even-the state of death.

Mr. Allemann: Is not individuation, in our sense of the word here, rather living life consciously? A plant individuates but it lives unconsciously.

Dr: Jung: That is our form of individuation.

A plant that is meant to produce a flower is not individuated if it does not produce a flower, it must fulfill the cycle; and the man that does not develop consciousness is not individuated, because consciousness is his flower, it is his life, it belongs to our process of individuation that we shall become conscious.

You see, all that a man does, whatever he attempts, means his individuation,

it is an accomplishment, a fulfillment of his possibilities; and one of his foremost possibilities is the attainment of consciousness.

That really makes him man: to man, life should be conscious.

Mrs. Sigg: Referring to Miss Hannah’s question, is it not true that at some times one feels the impersonal life to be very strong and at another time one has the feeling of being crucified in the body? And the same with individuation, sometimes in life, one has a greater consciousness, and at other times it is a narrower one.

Dr: Jung: Those are natural oscillations in the process of life that have nothing to do with that very fundamental question of what individuation is.

Of course one is sometimes more conscious than at other times.

Here is another question: “Is it simply the natural course of development of living beings which leads toward an ultimate goal beyond human understanding?”

We have answered that question practically.

The course of development leads to the fulfillment of the cycle, and the cycle consists of phases which we probably don’t understand.

Take that part of the cycle which seems conscious to us, life from birth to death; it  seems to be so banal and so simple, yet we understand very little of it.

We have not the faintest idea what life is, or how life and consciousness come to pass.

So it is not only the ultimate goal that is beyond human understanding, it is life itself and we ourselves.

You see, this question is biased-the idea that we are sort of preparatory or provisional living beings-because it is asked out of a Christian mentality.

The result is that one neglects the personal life as it is.

One is always looking forward, the pleasure is always in anticipation, and in the meantime one lives the provisional life; that is Happy Neurosis Island, where the great thing is still ahead.

But the great thing is here and now, this is the eternal moment, and if you do not realize it, you will have missed the best part of life.

You will have missed the realization that you are the carrier of a life contained between the poles of an unimaginable future and an unimaginably remote past.

Millions of years and untold millions of ancestors have worked up to this moment.

Anything that is past is no longer reality, anything that is ahead is not yet reality, reality is now.

To look at life as a mere preparation for things to come is like not enjoying your meal

while it is hot. That is really the disease of our time.

Everybody is chiefly concerned about the future.

One admits that things are now in very bad shape, so all the more one tries to jump out of them, and therefore they never improve.

One should take each moment as the eternal moment, as if nothing were ever going to change, not anticipating a faraway future.

For the future always grows out of that which is, and it cannot be sound if it grows in morbid soil; if we are morbid and don’t feel this here and now, we shall naturally build up a sickly future.

We have seen that illustrated in actual historical conditions; conditions are so unsatisfactory at present because everybody has lived in anticipation of something to

come, one always expected the golden age, so things got worse and worse.

Therefore in our psychology, in the life of the individual, it is of the greatest importance that we never think of the situation as merely now, with the hope of something coming in the future.

You may be sure it will never come when you think like that.

You must live life in such a spirit that you make in every moment the best of the possibilities.

Otherwise it is like saying, “Yes, the potatoes we planted were very bad, we did not take care of them, but next year they will be better.”

Of course, they will be just as bad as this year.

Still another question is: “Or is there a third possibility, namely, that the individual may effect a reunion, this time on the conscious level, with the totality of nature from which he was temporarily abstracted?”

Well, that is perfectly true, individuation is the fulfillment of the law of life; one is then quite naturally in union with the laws of the universe.

That is expressed in the idea of Tao, and it is on the conscious level if it is a matter of the human individual; such a consciousness naturally is in accord with the totality of nature.

So if one is allowed to speak of complete individuation at all, I should say that it would be a conscious experience of the totality of nature.

But such a thing is only possible if the individual in every moment of existence fulfills his complete being, lives the primitive pattern, fulfills all the expectations that he was originally born with.

Naturally one would be abstracted from that universal consciousness through any attempt at a provisional life, for the moment one looks ahead one neglects what is here.

The provisional life is a mutilated existence, it is only half a life, giving absolutely no chance of fulfillment, which is the only guarantee for a consciousness that is in harmony with the totality of nature.

Only when you behave exactly as you are meant to behave are you the friend and the brother of all living things; then you are right in your place, and then you suddenly understand that everything else is in its place.

That is the experience which old China called Tao, but that is a very mystical concept.

One realizes how rare, how almost impossible such an experience is, because it is linked up with the completeness of experience in every stage of life.

The experience of Tao can happen at any time.

If you are in the psychology of the first part of life-it is not necessarily a matter of

years-if you fulfill the personal ends of your existence and it is the right moment, you may have such an experience.

For it is quite understood that a young animal still in the process of maturation is just as much a fulfillment of the totality of nature as one that is dying, who, if dying properly, is also fulfilling life because the idea of life includes death, it is a cycle.

There is the same possibility at any moment of life.

You probably experienced Tao when you were a child, when you woke up in your little bed in the morning with the sun shining into your room.

That would be an experience of Tao inasmuch as your parents had not twisted you.

But it is quite possible that your parents put dirt on your nose, and then, even as a child, you could only experience a twisted feeling.

Or you might experience it at fifteen or twenty if you fulfill your own personal and individual expectations which are then valid.

And you can experience the same when you are fading away, dying, if you do it properly, as that fulfillment which is in accordance with the laws of nature.

Just that is demanded and nothing else.

Many people have never in their whole lives felt such a natural fulfillment because they were completely twisted.

But they would experience it in the moment when they were able to liberate themselves from the twist-in that moment they would experience Tao.

Now we will continue our visions.

You remember we stopped at the scene of that crucified woman, whose breast was pierced by the staff.

Our patient says: “I drew the staff forth from the breast of the woman.”

You are aware of the extraordinary likeness here to the Christian mystery, the spear of Longinus piercing the side of Christ.

And Odin was hanging on the tree for nine nights pierced by the spear.

The wound instantly healed and the woman arose. I said: “Why has this happened to you?”

The woman answered: “Too long have I fructified the earth.”

What do you think of this passage?

There is a Christian analogy, though it is not to be taken too literally.

Dr. Reichstein: The resurrection.

Dr. Jung: Yes, the spear is withdrawn from the wound.

Christ was dead, he was buried, and then came the resurrection.

This suggests a sort of abbreviated resurrection, the three days in the grave in a moment.

We must discuss the Christian symbolism because it is in our blood; we have

always taken it for granted and never thought it could be psychologically symbolical.

Dr. Riechstein: It is a kind of transformation; something dies and out comes the new.

Frau Durler: It is a reward of sacrifice.

Dr. Jung: Sure enough, a sacrifice is always done with the idea of a reward.

But the idea here is that individuation means intense suffering, life itself leads into crucifixion; in other words, into complete unfolding.

You see, the unfolding symbolized by the cross is the unfolding of the four functions, it is the unfolding of the golden flower.

That is expressed in a very beautiful form, but it may also be expressed in the very negative form of intense suffering.

On the one side almost superhuman joy, complete fulfillment; yet in the very moment of fulfillment, there is the deepest pain, as if one were pierced by the spear.

It is a moment of the intensest life, yet also a moment of most intense pain, of despair.

It is difficult to explain such things, but if you have experienced anything of the sort, I need say nothing further.

I might talk volumes about it otherwise and you would not understand because it cannot be conveyed by words, it is a definite experience.

Perhaps I can explain it approximately, however.

Try to remember a moment in your life of complete joy, and then put it outside of yourself, go all around it, look at it from all sides, and try to see whether there was not intense pain in it too.

Usually one assumes, “Now this is marvellous,” and then it belongs to the marvellous

things which have no sting, apparently you have removed the sting.

One has a drawer for the painful things, and another drawer is for the marvellous

things, one tries to keep them separate.

But if you have observed it correctly, as it happens in real life, in actual fulfillment, you will have seen and felt the sting.

I will tell you a case.

A young man of twenty, who was in camp near a lake, was just starting out sailing.

It was a most beautiful morning and, as he went on board his boat, he shouted to his friends on the shore: “This is the most beautiful moment of my life!”-and dropped dead inthe water.

They instantly got his body up, but he was already dead.

It was a thymus death; if the thymus gland remains active too long, such people die in early youth for no apparent reason, as if struck by lightning.

The moment of supreme joy in life covered the sting of death, there was death in it.

That was quite obvious, everybody could see it.

Whether he himself knew it I don’t know; perhaps he only knew joy, only noticed the intense beauty of the moment, but the others could see that it was death.

A more usual example is that when people are conscious of a great feeling of life, the next night they have a fever; it is a forerunner well known to doctors that comes before an illness, sometimes a very grave illness.

These are very obvious examples, and the more subtle they are, the more difficult they are to grasp.

For in a moment of supreme fulfillment, one is so fascinated by the beautiful side of the experience that one fails to notice that it has a tragic side; naturally one hates to see it.

When people cannot defend themselves against such an insight into the dark side of their experience, they sometimes complain that they are abnormal, they think it is their neurosis which makes them feel the deep tragedy of such a moment.

But I say: “No, that is perfectly normal, you have observed the truth.”

So little is known about the truth of life.

Everything one knows of life and of mental states is so falsified that even people who have observed the fact think they must be wrong; but it is the truth.

So just the moment before-in the vision of the woman rising from the waters-our patient was rising out of the unconscious, out of chaos, out of the labor pains of birth, into a supreme moment of intense life, holding the great treasure in her hand.

This is the marvellous side of the experience.

Then instantly she finds herself crucified on the ground, not in heaven but on earth, and pierced by the spear.

Star-like she rises to heaven and then she is pierced by the very same star and is lying in torment on the ground.

What is the most supreme experience to one part of the personality is the most terrible destruction to another part; the spiritual beauty kills the beauty of the life of the earth, and the beauty of the earth kills the spirit.

This is an eternal truth.

So naturally our patient would not be able to unite these opposites at once, it is

difficult to grasp such a paradox, it is too painfully contradictory; the idea that the supreme good is also the supreme evil hurts one so much that one cannot conceive of it, yet it is absolutely true.

Not very long ago I talked with a very original person (she is not here) who is developing, not under my influence, but all by herself.

She is going through very strange spiritual experiences-she is really a borderline

case-and she said to me: “Thinking about God so much is beautiful but there is something terrible about it; when I experience the vision of God, I suddenly have to ask myself, can he not, or will he not?”

That is, can he not make life perfect or make man happy? Can it be that he is quite inefficient?

You see, she has had really remarkable mystical experiences, and at the same time there is the horrible sting of the thought: “Is God perhaps the devil too?”

Now that is really painful only as long as her consciousness is not detached enough to see the two extremes at the same time.

But in order to do that, she must be able to stand the pain of the paradox in herself, to see the extremes in herself at the same time.

Now our patient asks herself, that other woman as she rose from the ground: “Why has this happened to you?” and the answer was: “Too long have I fructified the earth.”

How do you explain that? To fructify a thing would mean what?

Dr: Ott: It means to give libido to the earth.

Dr: Jung: Yes, and it would be the biological libido of the morning of life.

You see, the woman that is crucified has lived only the first part of life, and the other aspect of herself is to live the second part.

The fructification of the earth expresses that biological type of merely personal life, and the other person in her, as we have often seen in the course of these visions, symbolizes the second part, the ultimate result, the impersonal form of life.

So when the crucified woman recognizes the fact that her time is over, she is overcome, and that is symbolized by the cross.

Why is that?

Do you know the symbology of Christ’s crucifixion? When did the crucifixion take place?

Mrs. Crowley: At the spring point.

Dr: Jung: Yes, in the neighborhood of the vernal equinox, the sacrifice of the lamb takes place.

Now the lamb is really Aries, the little ram; the Greek word for lamb is t6 arnion, and that comes from the root word aren meaning the ram, so the arnion is the little lamb that was sacrificed at the spring point of the year, between 100 and 150 B.C., when Aries came to an end.

When the sun changed from the month of the Ram into the month of the Fishes, the lamb was sacrificed.  Therefore Christ was called Ichthys, the fish.

Now this sacrifice at the spring point, the time of the vernal equinox, is symbolic, it is the time of the cross.

What is the vernal cross?

Dr: Ott: It is the time when the ecliptic crosses the equator.

Dr: Jung: Exactly, the spring point is just where the ecliptic crosses the equator.

That concept was already known to the old Babylonians; therefore the idea of the cross has often been associated with this astronomical feature.

The idea is rather too abstract, it is not quite satisfactory, yet when one realizes how much astrology went into the early symbology, one can hardly doubt it, it is most probable.

Like the relationship of John the Baptist to Christ. John the Baptist was born six months before Christ, which would be the time of the summer solstice, and John says of Christ: “He must grow but I must decrease.”

So when the sun is in the summer solstice it must decrease, but when it is in the winter solstice, when Christ was born, it must increase.

That shows how much of astronomy and astrology has gone into these legends.

The cross, then, is the vernal sacrifice.

And of what did the vernal sacrifice consist in antiquity?

Dr. Ott: It was the time of the Passover.

Dr. Jung: Yes, and there were other parallels.

It was particularly the sacrifice des primeurs, the first fruits of the field, the first vegetables, the first lambs and other young animals, and so on.

And the first-born son, Christ the Son of God, is also sacrificed at the time of the vernal equinox.

This idea of youth being sacrificed was called in Rome the ver sacrum, the sacred spring.

What does that symbolize? Why should youth be sacrificed then? Or why should it be sacrificed at all?

Mrs. Crowley: It is still connected with the astrological situation.

Dr. Jung: That was projected. These sacrifices took place much earlier than the astrological projection.

Dr. Ott: Was it not a guarantee of the future, a sort of propitiatory sacrifice?

Dr. Jung: Yes, you could say the best things of the moment were sacrificed in order to propitiate the gods of the future, to ensure a fertile continuation of the year.

Dr. Reichstein: The vision says she has too long fructified the earth. Here the point is reached where whatever is killed or sacrificed must not be for the earth but for the gods.

Dr. Jung: Yes, it has the value of the vernal sacrifice, it is spring when the new thing is born.

That woman rising from the waves symbolizes the birth of a new existence, a new part of life, and at the same time it is the death of what has been before.

And the death is a sort of sacrifice in that it should be a voluntary death.

Therefore in the Christian symbolism, Christ’s death is voluntary, a self-sacrifice.

So there are many reasons why the symbolism in the vision is a close analogy to the Christian idea of sacrifice, and it is also a most natural occurrence as the vernal sacrifice

of antiquity.

From these associations one gets the picture of a thing that is most natural, most antique and pagan, and at the same time most Christian.

It shows that even if one tries to get away from such ideas, one is led back to them quite naturally, because it is the way of nature.

I must repeat that word of Goethe which I have quoted occasionally: Die Natur verlangt einen Tod, nature demands a death.

It is a necessity that things go that way.

So when our patient consciously and voluntarily fulfills that law, she is in tune with the natural law.

It means psychologically that she has now arrived at the moment when the first part of life definitely comes to an end, and therefore she has to make it a conscious and voluntary sacrifice.

That is past and a new period now begins.

Through such an insight and such a decision she produces the resurrection of that woman who was crucified.

For the sacrifice does not mean that the life of the body should be killed forever, that it never should return, it is meant only as a transformation.

This idea is also indicated, or alluded to at least, in the Christian dogma of the resurrection of the body; the body must be mortified in the sacrifice, yet in the resurrection of the body is the idea that the body itself will return.

Christ was buried, his body was a corpse, but it rose from the dead and left nothing in the grave; his body was never dead, it was alive, he came back with his body.

That led to the dogma of the complete resurrection of man, and if you meditate upon that Christian symbol, you naturally come to the conclusion that it anticipated a future

point of view, with emphasis upon the importance of the body.

There comes a time when you say: enough of that mortification, that neglect and despising of the body, it has to be sacrificed in the vernal equinox, but it must return, it must continue to play its role.

So the sacrifice of the psychology of the first part of your life does not mean that hereafter you exclude the body and its psychology, but rather, you continue it in a new form, with a different conception. It no longer has the same purpose, but it nevertheless must and will live.

If you continue the sacrificial psychology, you pay no attention to it, or you try to forget it, and then you always suffer from a dissociation.

But if the recognition is made that the body is now healed, that it is really like the wound of Amfortas, you are at one with it.

And now something quite peculiar happens: Then she walked away through the deserted streets, and I wandered through the city leading the horse and holding the staff, on the end of which was the golden star.

You see, they both do the same thing, but the woman who arrived at the white city on the white horse holds the spear that wounded the other one.

We never know what becomes of the other woman, she walks away like an empty shadow.

One would expect that the two forms would become one, and that she would live in her renewed body, but nothing of the kind happens here; the two separate apparently, and the one with the white horse takes the star, the symbol of individuation, and leading the horse, she goes her own way.

With that this series of visions comes to an end, and we are left in doubt as to what has happened to her shadow, to her poor body. What would you expect after this?

Mrs. Crowley: It seems like a dissociation.

Dr. Jung: Yes, everything apparently led up to a union, but the result is a dissociation.

Now what is the historical analogy? Christ’s body became whole and sound, but then what happened?

Dr. Reichstein: People only saw the spirit of the thing.

Dr. Jung: Exactly. They just took the staff with the star and walked on, leaving the body behind.

There was no resurrection of the body.

The  first attempt at that began in the Renaissance, there it appeared in marvellous beauty again, the antique ideal.

But it lasted only a little over a century, and then that came to an end.

So history repeated itself; the idea of the resurrection of the body was too symbolical, too advanced, people were still not capable of accepting it.

There are traces in the New Testament of an entirely different point of view from that of later Christianity; in certain passages by St. Paul there is an indubitable recognition

of the resurrection of the body.

But that was too early, people could not stand it.

To teach the complete sacrifice of the body and its desires, and then that it should be accepted again, was too much; the yea and the nay were too close, the one or the other would not have been real.

Therefore the body had to be sacrificed for many centuries until this thing was really understood.

After fifteen hundred years it seemed possible to consider it again, but it still proved to be too early, so it was covered up once more by the Reformation.

There are very intelligent historians who say that if only that man Luther had not been so serious about the whole business, the Popes would have led Christianity back into the most wonderful renaissance of antiquity.

Sure enough, Alexander VJ3 was on his

way to it, he did his level best to go right back to the Roman Caesars, but unfortunately that northern monk threw a stone into his honorable attempt.

But Luther or not, there would have been a reaction against it, it was still too early.

So no wonder, when our patient is faced with the difficulty of solving this secular problem with her own private and modest means, that she is still stopped by the same snag; she lets the body wander off, and turns away, holding onto the staff with the star.

Now before we begin the next fantasy, I should like to know what you expect to happen now.

There must be a certain reaction, as it happened historically, that when the resurrection of the body became something like a living truth in the time of the Renaissance, it was followed by the spiritual reaction of Protestantism which forced the Catholic church to

reform.

And since the Tridentum, the Catholic church has become more or less petrified in dogmatism, it has never been able to recover from the shock of that great dissension.

Mind you, with the Reformation, the best forces went out of the Catholic church.

So naturally since the living spirit is in Protestantism, the Catholic church is no longer

burdened with that problem of the resurrection of the body.

But the Protestants are, it is up to them-what they will do about it.

If you want to see something of the resurrection of the body look at our times.

It is amazing.

One visit to the Strandbad will do!

Now what may we expect in this case?

Mrs. Sawyer: I think she will go into the black city.

Dr. Reichstein: A collective situation might come again. Perhaps she will go into a town where she has to meet people.

Dr. Ott: Could not an animal or something Dionysian appear again?

Dr. Jung: That is quite possible.

As after the Catholic ideal of the complete mortification of the body in the early Middle Ages, the satyrs and nymphs came to life in the Renaissance.

Now we shall see.

She says: I beheld a man sitting under a tree playing a long flute. His eyes were turned inwards so that only the whites showed. His face was long and thin, the skin tightly drawn. He seemed to be suffering.

Who is that?

Answer: Pan.

Dr. Jung: But Pan looks exceedingly ill.

Having been treated to a Christian monastery, Pan is thin, his skin is tightly drawn over his bones and he is suffering.

So if this is Pan, he is not in good shape, he is a bit mangy, he obviously has had a very bad time.

This is the idea of the neglected body, of course; Pan always represents the life of the body and of natural things, trees and animals and so on.

But his face has grown very long in the meantime.

What would you assume would now happen to old suffering Pan, baptized and domesticated and starving, playing his flute under the tree?

Something must happen to get him out of his misery. One might find something to cure him. What does he miss?

Answer: The earth.

Dr. Jung: Well, he has the earth still and the tree, but he misses something else.

Dr. Ott: A nymph.

Dr. Jung: That is perfectly true, though he would not know what to do with a nymph in his actual state.

While he played a leopard leapt down from the tree and seizing the flute in his mouth climbed up to the topmost branches.

The man fell over dead.

So there was nothing to be done with him, he was at the end of his rope, and an animal now takes his place.

You see, that was the old animus that was no good any longer, and he is now replaced by a downright leopard

which is ever so much more efficient.

It is of course perfectly ridiculous that the leopard should seize the flute instead of the man, but probably Pan was so dried up that the leopard wouldn’t have been able to get his teeth into him.

Now, that he seized the flute points to what?

Mrs. Sigg: It points to the fact that the leopard is really god.

Dr. Jung: Yes, Dionysus himself.

She says: The leopard played a loud note on the flute. (This has immediately a most enchanting effect on the whole of nature.)  The sky became dark with many birds that flew towards the tree. (Really a Dionysus Orpheus miracle.) And the birds called out: “Behold he cometh.” (The greeting to the god.) I saw a man walking toward the tree. His

robe was dark blue, his face was very beautiful. He said: “I have heard my own voice speaking to me.” The leopard dropped the flute at his feet. The man picked it up and walked away.

What do you think of this man in his blue robe who was so very beautiful?

Dr. Ott: I think he sounds too spiritual for the situation.

Dr. Jung: Well, the leopard was simply the first form of the new animus, the animus in animal disguise; that was a were-leopard, which is shown in the fact that he played the flute.

So we could expect another animus to follow, and here he is.

The man in the blue robe says: “I have heard my own voice speaking to me,” meaning the note of the flute, and in that moment the leopard dropped the flute and left the music to the newcomer, who is obviously an antique god.  Therefore the birds were singing: “Behold, he cometh.”

The man now takes the flute, showing that he has something of the quality of Dionysus, though the blue robe points to a rather more spiritual quality.

Mr: Baumann: Is he not Orpheus?

Dr: Jung: Yes, it might be Orpheus, who would be a more spiritual figure. Yet he is a parallel to Dionysus.

Orpheus is the psychopompos par excellence.

Now where would he be going?

Mrs. Fierz: Could he not find that other woman?

Dr: Jung: Not so quickly, for a great problem has to be settled first.

Mrs. Baynes: He is going to a temple.

Dr: Jung: Right, but what kind of temple?

Mrs. Baynes: A pagan temple.

Dr: Jung: No, Christian.

She says: He came to a great cathedral which he entered. It was empty save for a black hooded figure kneeling before the altar.  The man approached this figure and beheld-

What do you think he beheld?

One would say the woman, but not at all, he beheld a skeleton.

He, alive, enters the cathedral and finds before the altar a skeleton.

What does that mean?

Mrs. Crowley: Is it that same idea of sacrifice in another form? Is it the idea of the two opposites, life and death?

Dr: Jung: Yes, but what does it mean?

He finds only death in the cathedral.

Mrs. Baynes: Then he was really looking for the pagan temple after all.

Dr: Jung: Now just a minute, wait!

This is the psychopompos, the animus who anticipates the things to come, so he demonstrates to her that the Christian point of view is empty and dead.

Then raising the flute to his lips he blew a loud and savage note.

The walls of the cathedral crumbled and fell about him and nothing was left but the altar and the skeleton at his feet.

That is perfectly plain, it is like the walls of Jericho falling before the blast of Joshua’s trumpets of rams’ horns.

He took the cross from the altar and laid it on the skeleton.

Then he kicked over the altar and walked away.

The animus shows her in a very drastic way that this whole point of view has to be abolished.

But why must he demonstrate it by such a blasphemous action?

Mrs. Baynes: Because she still has that Christian attitude.

Dr: Jung: Exactly, and therefore she walked away from her own body. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Page 756-770