VOLUME 9,ii. OF THp COLLECTED WORKS OF AION RESEARCHES INTO THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SELF SECOND EDITION BOLUNGEN SERIES XX PRINCETON Second edition, s THE COLLECTED WORKS OF C. G.JUNG VOLUME 9, PART II AION RESEARCHES INTO THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SELF Translated by R. F. C. Hull A/on, originally published in 1951, is one of the major works of C. G. Jung's later years. The central theme of the volume is the sym- bolical representation of the psychic totality through the concept of the Self, whose tradi- tional historical equivalent is the figure of Christ. Professor Jung demonstrates his thesis by an investigation of the A//egor/ae Christi, especially the fish symbol, but also of Gnostic and alchemical symbolism, which he treats as phenomena of cultural assimilation. The astro- logical aspect of the fish symbol and, in par- ticular, the foretelling of the Antichrist are dis- cussed in detail. The first four chapters, on the ego, the shadow, and the anima and animus, compose a valuable summation of these key concepts in Jung's system of psychology. As a study of the archetype of the self, Aion complements the first part of Volume 9, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, which is being published separately. For the second edition, textual corrections have been made and the notes and bibliogra- phy have been brought up to date. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/collectedworksof92cgju BOLLINGEN SERIES XX THE COLLECTED WORKS OF C. G. JUNG VOLUME 9, PART II EDITORS SIR HERBERT READ MICHAEL FORDHAM, M.D., M.R.C.P. GERHARD ADLER, PH.D. William mcguire, executive editor The Mithraic god Aion Roman, 2iid-^rd century AION RESEARCHES INTO THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SELF C. G. JUNG SECOND EDITION TRANSLATED BY R. F. C. HULL BOLLINGEN SERIES XX PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS COPYRIGHT © 1959 BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC., NEW YORK, N. Y. PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, N. J. Second edition, with corrections and minor revisions, 1968 Second printing, 1970 THIS EDITION IS BEING PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, AND IN ENGLAND BY ROUTLEDGE AND KEGAN PAUL, LTD. IN THE AMERICAN EDITION, ALL THE VOLUMES COMPRISING THE COLLECTED WORKS CON- STITUTE NUMBER XX IN BOLLINGEN SERIES. THE PRESENT VOLUME IS NUMBER 9 OF THE COLLECTED WORKS, AND WAS THE EIGHTH TO APPEAR. IT IS IN TWO PARTS, PUBLISHED SEPARATELY, THIS BEING PART II. Translated from the first part of Aion: Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte (Psychologische Abhandlungen, VIII), published by Rascher Verlag, Zurich, 1951. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 75-156 ISBN O-69I-O9759-3 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EDITORIAL NOTE Volume 9 of the Collected Works is devoted to studies of the specific archetypes of the collective unconscious. Part I, entitled The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, is composed of shorter essays; Part II, Aion, is a long monograph on the arche- type of the self. The author has agreed to a modification of the sub-title of Aion, which in the Swiss edition appeared in two forms, "Researches into the History of Symbols" and "Contribu- tions to the Symbolism of the Self." The first five chapters were previously published, with small differences, in Psyche and Sym- bol: A Selection from the Writings of C. G. Jung, edited by Violet S. de Laszlo (Anchor Books, Garden City, New York, 1958). EDITORIAL NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION For this edition corrections have been made in the text and footnotes and the bibliographical references have been brought up to date in relation to the Collected Works. The translation has been corrected in light of further experience of translating Jung's works. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following persons, whose translations have been consulted during the preparation of the present work: Mr. William H. Kennedy, for extensive use of his translation of portions of chapters 2 and 3, issued as "Shadow, Animus, and Anima" by the Analytical Psychology Club of New York, 1950; Dr. Hildegarde Nagel, for reference to her translation of the original Eranos-Jahrbuch version (1949) of "Concerning the Self," in Spring, 1951, which original ver- sion the author later expanded into Aion, chapters 4 and 5; and Miss Barbara Hannah and Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz, for helpful advice with the remaining chapters. Especial thanks are due to Mr. A. S. B. Glover, who (unless otherwise noted) trans- lated the Latin and Greek texts throughout. References to pub- lished sources are given for the sake of completeness. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL NOTES V translator's note vi LIST OF PLATES viii FOREWORD ix I. The Ego 3 II. The Shadow 8 III. The Syzygy: Anima and Animus 1 1 IV. The Self 23 V. Christ, a Symbol of the Self 36 VI. The Sign of the Fishes 72 VII. The Prophecies of Nostradamus 95 VIII. The Historical Significance of the Fish 103 IX. The Ambivalence of the Fish Symbol 1 1 8 X. The Fish in Alchemy 126 1. The Medusa, 126 — 2. The Fish, 137 — 3. The Fish Symbol of the Cathars, 145 XI. The Alchemical Interpretation of the Fish 154 XII. Background to the Psychology of Christian Alchemical Symbolism 173 XIII. Gnostic Symbols of the Self 184 XIV. The Structure and Dynamics of the Self 222 XV. Conclusion 266 BIBLIOGRAPHY 27 1 INDEX 3OI vii LIST OF PLATES The Mithraic god Aion Roman, 2nd~3rd century. Museo Profano, Vatican, p: Alinari. frontispiece I. The Four Elements Michael Maier, Scrutinium chymicum (1687), Emblema XVII, p. 49. following page 250 II. The Trinity From a manuscript by Joachim of Flora. Graphics Collection, Zurich Central Library, B x 606. following page 254 Vlll FOREWORD The theme of this work 1 is the idea of the Aeon (Greek, Aion). My investigation seeks, with the help of Christian, Gnostic, and alchemical symbols of the self, to throw light on the change of psychic situation within the "Christian aeon." Christian tradi- tion from the outset is not only saturated with Persian and Jewish ideas about the beginning and end of time, but is filled with intimations of a kind of enantiodromian reversal of domi- nants. I mean by this the dilemma of Christ and Antichrist. Probably most of the historical speculations about time and the division of time were influenced, as the Apocalypse shows, by astrological ideas. It is therefore only natural that my reflections should gravitate mainly round the symbol of the Fishes, for the Pisces aeon is the synchronistic concomitant of two thousand years of Christian development. In this time-period not only was the figure of the Anthropos (the "Son of Man") progres- sively amplified symbolically, and thus assimilated psychologi- cally, but it brought with it changes in man's attitude that had already been anticipated by the expectation of the Antichrist in the ancient texts. Because these texts relegate the appearance of Antichrist to the end of time, we are justified in speaking of a "Christian aeon," which, it was presupposed, would find its end with the Second Coming. It seems as if this expectation coincides with the astrological conception of the "Platonic month" of the Fishes. i [In the Swiss edition, this foreword begins as follows: "In this volume (VIII of the Psychologische Abhandlungen) I am bringing out two works which, despite their inner and outer differences, belong together in so far as they both treat of the great theme of this book, namely the idea of the Aeon (Greek, Aion). While the contribution of my co-worker, Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz, describes the psychological transition from antiquity to Christianity by analysing the Pas- sion of St. Perpetua, my own investigation seeks, with the help of" etc., as above. Dr. von Franz's "Die Passio Perpetuae" is omitted from the present volume. —Editors.] ix FOREWORD The immediate occasion for my proposing to discuss these historical questions is the fact that the archetypal image of wholeness, which appears so frequently in the products of the unconscious, has its forerunners in history. These were identi- fied very early with the figure of Christ, as I have shown in my book Psychology and Alchemy. 2 I have been requested so often by my readers to discuss the relations between the traditional Christ-figure and the natural symbols of wholeness, or the self, that I finally decided to take this task in hand. Considering the unusual difficulties of such an undertaking, my decision did not come easily to me, for, in order to surmount all the ob- stacles and possibilities of error, a knowledge and caution would be needed which, unfortunately, are vouchsafed me only in limited degree. I am moderately certain of my observations on the empirical material, but I am fully aware of the risk I am taking in drawing the testimonies of history into the scope of my reflections. I think I also know the responsibility I am tak- ing upon myself when, as though continuing the historical process of assimilation, I add to the many symbolical amplifica- tions of the Christ-figure yet another, the psychological one, or even, so it might seem, reduce the Christ-symbol to a psycho- logical image of wholeness. My reader should never forget, how- ever, that I am not making a confession of faith or writing a tendentious tract, but am simply considering how certain things could be understood from the standpoint of our modern consciousness— things which I deem it valuable to understand, and which are obviously in danger of being swallowed up in the abyss of incomprehension and oblivion; things, finally, whose understanding would do much to remedy our philosophic dis- orientation by shedding light on the psychic background and the secret chambers of the soul. The essence of this book was built up gradually, in the course of many years, in countless conversations with people of all ages and all walks of life; with people who in the confusion and uprootedness of our society were likely to lose all contact with the meaning of European culture and to fall into that state of suggestibility which is the occasion and cause of the Utopian mass-psychoses of our time. I write as a physician, with a physician's sense of respon- sibility, and not as a proselyte. Nor do I write as a scholar, 2 [Ch. 5, "The Lapis-Christ Parallel."] X FOREWORD otherwise I would wisely barricade myself behind the safe walls of my specialism and not, on account of my inadequate knowl- edge of history, expose myself to critical attack and damage my scientific reputation. So far as my capacities allow, restricted as they are by old age and illness, I have made every effort to docu- ment my material as reliably as possible and to assist the veri- fication of my conclusions by citing the sources. C. G. Jung May 1950 XI AION RESEARCHES INTO THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE SELF These things came to pass, they say, that Jesus might be made the first sacrifice in the discrim- ination of composite natures. Hippolytus, Elenchos, VII, 27, 8 THE EGO Investigation of the psychology of the unconscious con- fronted me with facts which required the formulation of new concepts. One of these concepts is the self. The entity so denoted is not meant to take the place of the one that has always been known as the ego, but includes it in a supraordinate concept. We understand the ego as the complex factor to which all con- scious contents are related. It forms, as it were, the centre of the field of consciousness; and, in so far as this comprises the em- pirical personality, the ego is the subject of all personal acts of consciousness. The relation of a psychic content to the ego forms the criterion of its consciousness, for no content can be con- scious unless it is represented to a subject. With this definition we have described and delimited the scope of the subject. Theoretically, no limits can be set to the field of consciousness, since it is capable of indefinite extension. Empirically, however, it always finds its limit when it comes up against the unknown. This consists of everything we do not know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the centre of the field of consciousness. The unknown falls into two groups of objects: those which are outside and can be experienced by the senses, and those which are inside and are experienced im- mediately. The first group comprises the unknown in the outer world; the second the unknown in the inner world. We call this latter territory the unconscious. The ego, as a specific content of consciousness, is not a sim- ple or elementary factor but a complex one which, as such, cannot be described exhaustively. Experience shows that it rests on two seemingly different bases: the somatic and the psychic. The somatic basis is inferred from the totality of endosomatic perceptions, which for their part are already of a psychic nature and are associated with the ego, and are therefore conscious. They are produced by endosomatic stimuli, only some of which 3 AION cross the threshold of consciousness. A considerable proportion of these stimuli occur unconsciously, that is, subliminally. The fact that they are subliminal does not necessarily mean that their status is merely physiological, any more than this would be true of a psychic content. Sometimes they are capable of crossing the threshold, that is, of becoming perceptions. But there is no doubt that a large proportion of these endosomatic stimuli are simply incapable of consciousness and are so elementary that there is no reason to assign them a psychic nature— unless of course one favours the philosophical view that all life-processes are psychic anyway. The chief objection to this hardly demon- strable hypothesis is that it enlarges the concept of the psyche beyond all bounds and interprets the life-process in a way not absolutely warranted by the facts. Concepts that are too broad usually prove to be unsuitable instruments because they are too vague and nebulous. I have therefore suggested that the term "psychic" be used only where there is evidence of a will capable of modifying reflex or instinctual processes. Here I must refer the reader to my paper "On the Nature of the Psyche," * where I have discussed this definition of the "psychic" at somewhat greater length. The somatic basis of the ego consists, then, of conscious and unconscious factors. The same is true of the psychic basis: on the one hand the ego rests on the total field of consciousness, and on the other, on the sum total of unconscious contents. These fall into three groups: first, temporarily subliminal con- tents that can be reproduced voluntarily (memory); second, unconscious contents that cannot be reproduced voluntarily; third, contents that are not capable of becoming conscious at all. Group two can be inferred from the spontaneous irruption of subliminal contents into consciousness. Group three is hypo- thetical; it is a logical inference from the facts underlying group two. It contains contents which have not yet irrupted into con- sciousness, or which never will. When I said that the ego "rests" on the total field of con- sciousness I do not mean that it consists of this. Were that so, it would be indistinguishable from the field of consciousness as a whole. The ego is only the latter's point of reference, grounded on and limited by the somatic factor described above, l Pars. 37 iff. 4 THE EGO Although its bases are in themselves relatively unknown and unconscious, the ego is a conscious factor par excellence. It is even acquired, empirically speaking, during the individual's lifetime. It seems to arise in the first place from the collision between the somatic factor and the environment, and, once established as a subject, it goes on developing from further col- lisions with the outer world and the inner. Despite the unlimited extent of its bases, the ego is never more and never less than consciousness as a whole. As a con- scious factor the ego could, theoretically at least, be described completely. But this would never amount to more than a pic- ture of the conscious personality; all those features which are unknown or unconscious to the subject would be missing. A total picture would have to include these. But a total descrip- tion of the personality is, even in theory, absolutely impossible, because the unconscious portion of it cannot be grasped cogni- tively. This unconscious portion, as experience has abundantly shown, is by no means unimportant. On the contrary, the most decisive qualities in a person are often unconscious and can be perceived only by others, or have to be laboriously discovered with outside help. Clearly, then, the personality as a total phenomenon does not coincide with the ego, that is, with the conscious personality, but forms an entity that has to be distinguished from the ego. Naturally the need to do this is incumbent only on a psychology that reckons with the fact of the unconscious, but for such a psychology the distinction is of paramount importance. Even for jurisprudence it should be of some importance whether certain psychic facts are conscious or not — for instance, in adjudging the question of responsibility. I have suggested calling the total personality which, though present, cannot be fully known, the self. The ego is, by defini- tion, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the whole. Inside the field of consciousness it has, as we say, free will. By this I do not mean anything philosophical, only the well-known psychological fact of "free choice," or rather the sub- jective feeling of freedom. But, just as our free will clashes with necessity in the outside world, so also it finds its limits outside the field of consciousness in the subjective inner world, where it comes into conflict with the facts of the self. And just as 5 AION circumstances or outside events "happen" to us and limit our freedom, so the self acts upon the ego like an objective occur- rence which free will can do very little to alter. It is, indeed, well known that the ego not only can do nothing against the self, but is sometimes actually assimilated by unconscious components of the personality that are in the process of development and is greatly altered by them. It is, in the nature of the case, impossible to give any general description of the ego except a formal one. Any other mode of observation would have to take account of the individuality which attaches to the ego as one of its main characteristics. Al- though the numerous elements composing this complex factor are, in themselves, everywhere the same, they are infinitely varied as regards clarity, emotional colouring, and scope. The result of their combination— the ego— is therefore, so far as one can judge, individual and unique, and retains its identity up to a certain point. Its stability is relative, because far-reaching changes of personality can sometimes occur. Alterations of this kind need not always be pathological; they can also be develop- mental and hence fall within the scope of the normal. Since it is the point of reference for the field of conscious- ness, the ego is the subject of all successful attempts at adapta- tion so far as these are achieved by the will. The ego therefore has a significant part to play in the psychic economy. Its position there is so important that there are good grounds for the prej- udice that the ego is the centre of the personality, and that the field of consciousness is the psyche per se. If we discount certain suggestive ideas in Leibniz, Kant, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, and the philosophical excursions of Carus and von Hartmann, it is only since the end of the nineteenth century that modern psychology, with its inductive methods, has discovered the foundations of consciousness and proved empirically the exist- ence of a psyche outside consciousness. With this discovery the position of the ego, till then absolute, became relativized; that is to say, though it retains its quality as the centre of the field of consciousness, it is questionable whether it is the centre of the personality. It is part of the personality but not the whole of it. As I have said, it is simply impossible to estimate how large or how small its share is; how free or how dependent it is on the qualities of this "extra-conscious" psyche. We can only say that 6 THE EGO its freedom is limited and its dependence proved in ways that are often decisive. In my experience one would do well not to underestimate its dependence on the unconscious. Naturally there is no need to say this to persons who already overestimate the latter's importance. Some criterion for the right measure is afforded by the psychic consequences of a wrong estimate, a point to which we shall return later on. " We have seen that, from the standpoint of the psychology of consciousness, the unconscious can be divided into three groups of contents. But from the standpoint of the psychology of the personality a twofold division ensues: an "extra-conscious" psyche whose contents are personal, and an "extra-conscious" psyche whose contents are impersonal and collective. The first group comprises contents which are integral components of the individual personality and could therefore just as well be con- scious; the second group forms, as it were, an omnipresent, un- changing, and everywhere identical quality or substrate of the psyche per se. This is, of course, no more than a hypothesis. But we are driven to it by the peculiar nature of the empirical ma- terial, not to mention the high probability that the general similarity of psychic processes in all individuals must be based on an equally general and impersonal principle that conforms to law, just as the instinct manifesting itself in the individual is only the partial manifestation of an instinctual substrate com- mon to all men. II THE SHADOW »3 Whereas the contents of the personal unconscious are ac- quired during the individual's lifetime, the contents of the col- lective unconscious are invariably archetypes that were present from the beginning. Their relation to the instincts has been dis- cussed elsewhere. 1 The archetypes most clearly characterized from the empirical point of view are those which have the most frequent and the most disturbing influence on the ego. These are the shadow, the anima, and the animus. 2 The most accessible of these, and the easiest to experience, is the shadow, for its nature can in large measure be inferred from the contents of the personal unconscious. The only exceptions to this rule are those rather rare cases where the positive qualities of the personality are repressed, and the ego in consequence plays an essentially negative or unfavourable role. H The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as pres- ent and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with consider- able resistance. Indeed, self-knowledge as a psychotherapeutic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending over a long period. *5 Closer examination of the dark characteristics— that is, the inferiorities constituting the shadow— reveals that they have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an ob- sessive or, better, possessive quality. Emotion, incidentally, is 1 "Instinct and the Unconscious" and "On the Nature of the Psyche," pars. 3978. 2 The contents of this and the following chapter are taken from a lecture deliv- ered to the Swiss Society for Practical Psychology, in Zurich, 1948. The material was first published in the Wiener Zeitschrift fur Nervenheilkunde und deren Grenzgebiete, I (1948) : 4. 8 THE SHADOW not an activity of the individual but something that happens to him. Affects occur usually where adaptation is weakest, and at the same time they reveal the reason for its weakness, namely a certain degree of inferiority and the existence of a lower level of personality. On this lower level with its uncontrolled or scarcely controlled emotions one behaves more or less like a primitive, who is not only the passive victim of his affects but also singularly incapable of moral judgment. 16 Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, expe- rience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impos- sible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recogni- tion is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognized without too much difficulty as one's own personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person. No matter how obvious it may be to the neutral observer that it is a matter of projections, there is little hope that the subject will perceive this himself. He must be con- vinced that he throws a very long shadow before he is willing to withdraw his emotionally-toned projections from their object. *7 Let us suppose that a certain individual shows no inclina- tion whatever to recognize his projections. The projection-mak- ing factor then has a free hand and can realize its object— if it has one— or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power. As we know, it is not the conscious subject but the unconscious which does the projecting. Hence one meets with projections, one does not make them. The effect of projection is to isolate the subject from his environment, since instead of a real relation to it there is now only an illusory one. Projections change the world into the replica of one's own unknown face. In the last analysis, therefore, they lead to an autoerotic or autistic condition in which one dreams a world whose reality remains forever unattainable. The resultant sentiment d'incompletude and the still worse feeling of sterility are in their turn explained by projection as the malevolence of the environment, and by means of this vicious circle the isolation is intensified. The more AION projections are thrust in between the subject and the environ- ment, the harder it is for the ego to see through its illusions. A forty-five-year-old patient who had suffered from a compulsion neurosis since he was twenty and had become completely cut off from the world once said to me: "But I can never admit to my- self that I've wasted the best twenty-five years of my life!" 18 It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of see- ing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going. Not consciously, of course— for consciously he is engaged in bewailing and cursing a faithless world that recedes further and further into the dis- tance. Rather, it is an unconscious factor which spins the illu- sions that veil his world. And what is being spun is a cocoon, which in the end will completely envelop him. J 9 One might assume that projections like these, which are so very difficult if not impossible to dissolve, would belong to the realm of the shadow— that is, to the negative side of the person- ality. This assumption becomes untenable after a certain point, because the symbols that then appear no longer refer to the same but to the opposite sex, in a man's case to a woman and vice versa. The source of projections is no longer the shadow— which is always of the same sex as the subject— but a contrasexual figure. Here we meet the animus of a woman and the anima of a man, two corresponding archetypes whose autonomy and uncon- sciousness explain the stubbornness of their projections. Though the shadow is a motif as well known to mythology as anima and animus, it represents first and foremost the personal uncon- scious, and its content can therefore be made conscious without too much difficulty. In this it differs from anima and animus, for whereas the shadow can be seen through and recognized fairly easily, the anima and animus are much further away from consciousness and in normal circumstances are seldom if ever realized. With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow— so far as its nature is personal. But when it appears as an archetype, one encounters the same difficulties as with anima and animus. In other words, it is quite within the bounds of possibility for a man to recognize the relative evil of his nature, but it is a rare and shattering experience for him to gaze into the face of absolute evil. 10 Ill THE SYZYGY: ANIMA AND ANIMUS 2° What, then, is this projection-making factor? The East calls it the "Spinning Woman" x — Maya, who creates illusion by her dancing. Had we not long since known it from the symbolism of dreams, this hint from the Orient would put us on the right track: the enveloping, embracing, and devouring element points unmistakably to the mother, 2 that is, to the son's relation to the real mother, to her imago, and to the woman who is to become a mother for him. His Eros is passive like a child's; he hopes to be caught, sucked in, enveloped, and devoured. He seeks, as it were, the protecting, nourishing, charmed circle of the mother, the condition of the infant released from every care, in which the outside world bends over him and even forces happiness upon him. No wonder the real world vanishes from sight! 21 If this situation is dramatized, as the unconscious usually dramatizes it, then there appears before you on the psychological stage a man living regressively, seeking his childhood and his mother, fleeing from a cold cruel world which denies him under- standing. Often a mother appears beside him who apparently shows not the slightest concern that her little son should become a man, but who, with tireless and self-immolating effort, neglects nothing that might hinder him from growing up and marrying. You behold the secret conspiracy between mother and son, and how each helps the other to betray life. 22 Where does the guilt lie? With the mother, or with the son? Probably with both. The unsatisfied longing of the son for life and the world ought to be taken seriously. There is in him a 1 Erwin Rousselle, "Seelische Fiihrung im lebenden Taoismus," PI. I, pp. 150, 170. Rousselle calls the spinning woman the "animal soul." There is a saying that runs, "The spinner sets in motion." I have denned the anima as a personification of the unconscious. 2 Here and in what follows, the word "mother" is not meant in the literal sense but as a symbol of everything that functions as a mother. 11 AION desire to touch reality, to embrace the earth and fructify the field of the world. But he makes no more than a series of fitful starts, for his initiative as well as his staying power are crippled by the secret memory that the world and happiness may be had as a gift— from the mother. The fragment of world which he, like every man, must encounter again and again is never quite the right one, since it does not'fall into his lap, does not meet him half way, but remains resistant, has to be conquered, and sub- mits only to force. It makes demands on the masculinity of a man, on his ardour, above all on his courage and resolution when it comes to throwing his whole being into the scales. For this he would need a faithless Eros, one capable of forgetting his mother and undergoing the pain of relinquishing the first love of his life. The mother, foreseeing this danger, has carefully in- culcated into him the virtues of faithfulness, devotion, loyalty, so as to protect him from the moral disruption which is the risk of every life adventure. He has learnt these lessons only too well, and remains true to his mother. This naturally causes her the deepest anxiety (when, to her greater glory, he turns out to be a homosexual, for example) and at the same time affords her an unconscious satisfaction that is positively mythological. For, in the relationship now reigning between them, there is consum- mated the immemorial and most sacred archetype of the mar- riage of mother and son. What, after all, has commonplace reality to offer, with its registry offices, pay envelopes, and monthly rent, that could outweigh the mystic awe of the hieros gamos? Or the star-crowned woman whom the dragon pursues, or the pious obscurities veiling the marriage of the Lamb? 23 This myth, better than any other, illustrates the nature of the collective unconscious. At this level the mother is both old and young, Demeter and Persephone, and the son is spouse and sleeping suckling rolled into one. The imperfections of real life, with its laborious adaptations and manifold disappointments, naturally cannot compete with such a state of indescribable ful- filment. 24 In the case of the son, the projection-making factor is iden- tical with the mother-imago, and this is consequently taken to be the real mother. The projection can only be dissolved when the son sees that in the realm of his psyche there is an imago not only of the mother but of the daughter, the sister, the beloved, 12 the syzygy: anima and animus the heavenly goddess, and the chthonic Baubo. Every mother and every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodi- ment of this omnipresent and ageless image, which corresponds to the deepest reality in a man. It belongs to him, this perilous image of Woman; she stands for the loyalty which in the inter- ests of life he must sometimes forgo; she is the much needed compensation for the risks, struggles, sacrifices that all end in disappointment; she is the solace for all the bitterness of life. And, at the same time, she is the great illusionist, the seductress, who draws him into life with her Maya— and not only into life's reasonable and useful aspects, but into its frightful paradoxes and ambivalences where good and evil, success and ruin, hope and despair, counterbalance one another. Because she is his greatest danger she demands from a man his greatest, and if he has it in him she will receive it. 2 5 This image is "My Lady Soul," as Spitteler called her. I have suggested instead the term "anima," as indicating something specific, for which the expression "soul" is too general and too vague. The empirical reality summed up under the concept of the anima forms an extremely dramatic content of the uncon- scious. It is possible to describe this content in rational, scien- tific language, but in this way one entirely fails to express its living character. Therefore, in describing the living processes of the psyche, I deliberately and consciously give preference to a dramatic, mythological way of thinking and speaking, because this is not only more expressive but also more exact than an abstract scientific terminology, which is wont to toy with the notion that its theoretic formulations may one fine day be resolved into algebraic equations. * 6 The projection-making factor is the anima, or rather the unconscious as represented by the anima. Whenever she appears, in dreams, visions, and fantasies, she takes on personified form, thus demonstrating that the factor she embodies possesses all the outstanding characteristics of a feminine being. 3 She is not an invention of the conscious, but a spontaneous product of the 3 Naturally, she is a typical figure in belles-lettres. Recent publications on the subject of the anima include Linda Fierz-David, The Dream of Poliphilo, and my "Psychology of the Transference." The anima as a psychological idea first appears in the i6th-cent. humanist Richardus Vitus. Cf. my Mysterium Coniunctionis, pars. 9 iff. 13 AION unconscious. Nor is she a substitute figure for the mother. On the contrary, there is every likelihood that the numinous quali- ties which make the mother-imago so dangerously powerful derive from the collective archetype of the anima, which is in- carnated anew in every male child. 2 7 Since the anima is an archetype that is found in men, it is reasonable to suppose that an equivalent archetype must be present in women; for just as the man is compensated by a feminine element, so woman is compensated by a masculine one. I do not, however, wish this argument to give the impres- sion that these compensatory relationships were arrived at by deduction. On the contrary, long and varied experience was needed in order to grasp the nature of anima and animus em- pirically. Whatever we have to say about these archetypes, there- fore, is either directly verifiable or at least rendered probable by the facts. At the same time, I am fully aware that we are dis- cussing pioneer work which by its very nature can only be provisional. 28 Just as the mother seems to be the first carrier of the projec- tion-making factor for the son, so is the father for the daughter. Practical experience of these relationships is made up of many individual cases presenting all kinds of variations on the same basic theme. A concise description of them can, therefore, be no more than schematic. 29 Woman is compensated by a masculine element and there- fore her unconscious has, so to speak, a masculine imprint. This results in a considerable psychological difference between men and women, and accordingly I have called the projection-mak- ing factor in women the animus, which means mind or spirit. The animus corresponds to the paternal Logos just as the anima corresponds to the maternal Eros. But I do not wish or intend to give these two intuitive concepts too specific a defini- tion. I use Eros and Logos merely as conceptual aids to describe the fact that woman's consciousness is characterized more by the connective quality of Eros than by the discrimination and cognition associated with Logos. In men, Eros, the function of relationship, is usually less developed than Logos. In women, on the other hand, Eros is an expression of their true nature, while their Logos is often only a regrettable accident. It gives rise to misunderstandings and annoying interpretations in the family 14 the syzygy: anima and animus circle and among friends. This is because it consists of opinions instead of reflections, and by opinions I mean a priori assump- tions that lay claim to absolute truth. Such assumptions, as everyone knows, can be extremely irritating. As the animus is partial to argument, he can best be seen at work in disputes where both parties know they are right. Men can argue in a very womanish way, too, when they are anima-possessed and have thus been transformed into the animus of their own anima. With them the question becomes one of personal vanity and touchiness (as if they were females); with women it is a question of power, whether of truth or justice or some other "ism" — for the dressmaker and hairdresser have already taken care of their vanity. The "Father" (i.e., the sum of conventional opinions) always plays a great role in female argumentation. No matter how friendly and obliging a woman's Eros may be, no logic on earth can shake her if she is ridden by the animus. Often the man has the feeling— and he is not altogether wrong— that only seduction or a beating or rape would have the necessary power of persuasion. He is unaware that this highly dramatic situa- tion would instantly come to a banal and unexciting end if he were to quit the field and let a second woman carry on the battle (his wife, for instance, if she herself is not the fiery war horse). This sound idea seldom or never occurs to him, because no man can converse with an animus for five minutes without becom- ing the victim of his own anima. Anyone who still had enough sense of humour to listen objectively to the ensuing dialogue would be staggered by the vast number of commonplaces, mis- applied truisms, cliches from newspapers and novels, shop- soiled platitudes of every description interspersed with vulgar abuse and brain-splitting lack of logic. It is a dialogue which, irrespective of its participants, is repeated millions and millions of times in all the languages of the world and always remains essentially the same. 3° This singular fact is due to the following circumstance: when animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduc- tion. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight). The language of love is of astonishing uniformity, using the well-worn formulas with the utmost devotion and fidelity, 15 AION so that once again the two partners find themselves in a banal collective situation. Yet they live in the illusion that they are related to one another in a most individual way. 3 1 In both its positive and its negative aspects the anima/animus relationship is always full of "animosity," i.e., it is emotional, and hence collective. Affects lower the level of the relationship and bring it closer to the common instinctual basis, which no longer has anything individual about it. Very often the rela- tionship runs its course heedless of its human performers, who afterwards do not know what happened to them. 32 Whereas the cloud of "animosity" surrounding the man is composed chiefly of sentimentality and resentment, in woman it expresses itself in the form of opinionated views, interpreta- tions, insinuations, and misconstructions, which all have the purpose (sometimes attained) of severing the relation between two human beings. The woman, like the man, becomes wrapped in a veil of illusions by her demon-familiar, and, as the daughter who alone understands her father (that is, is eternally right in everything), she is translated to the land of sheep, where she is put to graze by the shepherd of her soul, the animus. 33 Like the anima, the animus too has a positive aspect. Through the figure of the father he expresses not only conven- tional opinion but— equally— what we call "spirit," philosophical or religious ideas in particular, or rather the attitude resulting from them. Thus the animus is a psychopomp, a mediator be- tween the conscious and the unconscious and a personification of the latter. Just as the anima becomes, through integration, the Eros of consciousness, so the animus becomes a Logos; and in the same way that the anima gives relationship and related- ness to a man's consciousness, the animus gives to woman's consciousness a capacity for reflection, deliberation, and self- knowledge. 34 The effect of anima and animus on the ego is in principle the same. This effect is extremely difficult to eliminate because, in the first place, it is uncommonly strong and immediately fills the ego-personality with an unshakable feeling of Tightness and righteousness. In the second place, the cause of the effect is pro- jected and appears to lie in objects and objective situations. Both these characteristics can, I believe, be traced back to the peculiarities of the archetype. For the archetype, of course, exists 16 the syzygy: anima and animus a priori. This may possibly explain the often totally irrational yet undisputed and indisputable existence of certain moods and opinions. Perhaps these are so notoriously difficult to influence because of the powerfully suggestive effect emanating from the archetype. Consciousness is fascinated by it, held captive, as if hypnotized. Very often the ego experiences a vague feeling of moral defeat and then behaves all the more defensively, de- fiantly, and self-righteously, thus setting up a vicious circle which only increases its feeling of inferiority. The bottom is then knocked out of the human relationship, for, like megalo- mania, a feeling of inferiority makes mutual recognition im- possible, and without this there is no relationship. 35 As I said, it is easier to gain insight into the shadow than into the anima or animus. With the shadow, we have the advan- tage of being prepared in some sort by our education, which has always endeavoured to convince people that they are not one-hundred-per-cent pure gold. So everyone immediately un- derstands what is meant by "shadow," "inferior personality," etc. And if he has forgotten, his memory can easily be refreshed by a Sunday sermon, his wife, or the tax collector. With the anima and animus, however, things are by no means so simple. Firstly, there is no moral education in this respect, and secondly, most people are content to be self-righteous and prefer mutual vilification (if nothing worse!) to the recognition of their pro- jections. Indeed, it seems a very natural state of affairs for men to have irrational moods and women irrational opinions. Pre- sumably this situation is grounded on instinct and must remain as it is to ensure that the Empedoclean game of the hate and love of the elements shall continue for all eternity. Nature is conservative and does not easily allow her courses to be altered; she defends in the most stubborn way the inviolability of the preserves where anima and animus roam. Hence it is much more difficult to become conscious of one's anima/animus projections than to acknowledge one's shadow side. One has, of course, to overcome certain moral obstacles, such as vanity, ambition, con- ceit, resentment, etc., but in the case of projections all sorts of purely intellectual difficulties are added, quite apart from the contents of the projection which one simply doesn't know how to cope with. And on top of all this there arises a profound doubt as to whether one is not meddling too much with nature's 17 AION business by prodding into consciousness things which it would have been better to leave asleep. 3 6 Although there are, in my experience, a fair number of peo- ple who can understand without special intellectual or moral difficulties what is meant by anima and animus, one finds very many more who have the greatest trouble in visualizing these empirical concepts as anything concrete. This shows that they fall a little outside the usual range of experience. They are unpopular precisely because they seem unfamiliar. The conse- quence is that they mobilize prejudice and become taboo like everything else that is unexpected. 37 So if we set it up as a kind of requirement that projections should be dissolved, because it is wholesomer that way and in every respect more advantageous, we are entering upon new ground. Up till now everybody has been convinced that the idea "my father," "my mother," etc., is nothing but a faithful reflec- tion of the real parent, corresponding in every detail to the original, so that when someone says "my father" he means no more and no less than what his father is in reality. This is actu- ally what he supposes he does mean, but a supposition of iden- tity by no means brings that identity about. This is where the fallacy of the enkekalymmenos ('the veiled one') comes in. 4 If one includes in the psychological equation X's picture of his father, which he takes for the real father, the equation will not work out, because the unknown quantity he has introduced does not tally with reality. X has overlooked the fact that his idea of a person consists, in the first place, of the possibly very incom- plete picture he has received of the real person and, in the sec- ond place, of the subjective modifications he has imposed upon this picture. X's idea of his father is a complex quantity for which the real father is only in part responsible, an indefinitely larger share falling to the son. So true is this that every time he criticizes or praises his father he is unconsciously hitting back at himself, thereby bringing about those psychic consequences that overtake people who habitually disparage or overpraise themselves. If, however, X carefully compares his reactions with reality, he stands a chance of noticing that he has miscalculated * The fallacy, which stems from Eubulides the Megarian, runs: "Can you recog- nize your father?" Yes. "Can you recognize this veiled one?" No. "This veiled one is your father. Hence you can recognize your father and not recognize him." 18 the syzygy: anima and animus somewhere by not realizing long ago from his father's behaviour that the picture he has of him is a false one. But as a rule X is convinced that he is right, and if anybody is wrong it must be the other fellow. Should X have a poorly developed Eros, he will be either indifferent to the inadequate relationship he has with his father or else annoyed by the inconsistency and general incomprehensibility of a father whose behaviour never really corresponds to the picture X has of him. Therefore X thinks he has every right to feel hurt, misunderstood, and even betrayed. 3 8 One can imagine how desirable it would be in such cases to dissolve the projection. And there are always optimists who be- lieve that the golden age can be ushered in simply by telling peo- ple the right way to go. But just let them try to explain to these people that they are acting like a dog chasing its own tail. To make a person see the shortcomings of his attitude considerably more than mere "telling" is needed, for more is involved than ordinary common sense can allow. What one is up against here is the kind of fateful misunderstanding which, under ordinary conditions, remains forever inaccessible to insight. It is rather like expecting the average respectable citizen to recognize him- self as a criminal. 39 I mention all this just to illustrate the order of magnitude to which the anima/animus projections belong, and the moral and intellectual exertions that are needed to dissolve them. Not all the contents of the anima and animus are projected, how- ever. Many of them appear spontaneously in dreams and so on, and many more can be made conscious through active imagina- tion. In this way we find that thoughts, feelings, and affects are alive in us which we would never have believed possible. Nat- urally, possibilities of this sort seem utterly fantastic to any- one who has not experienced them himself, for a normal per- son "knows what he thinks." Such a childish attitude on the part of the "normal person" is simply the rule, so that no one without experience in this field can be expected to understand the real nature of anima and animus. With these reflections one gets into an entirely new world of psychological experience, provided of course that one succeeds in realizing it in prac- tice. Those who do succeed can hardly fail to be impressed by all that the ego does not know and never has known. This in- crease in self-knowledge is still very rare nowadays and is usually 19 AION paid for in advance with a neurosis, if not with something worse. 4° The autonomy of the collective unconscious expresses itself in the figures of anima and animus. They personify those of its contents which, when withdrawn from projection, can be in- tegrated into consciousness. To this extent, both figures repre- sent functions which filter the contents of the collective uncon- scious through to the conscious mind. They appear or behave as such, however, only so long as the tendencies of the conscious and unconscious do not diverge too greatly. Should any tension arise, these functions, harmless till then, confront the conscious mind in personified form and behave rather like systems split off from the personality, or like part souls. This comparison is inadequate in so far as nothing previously belonging to the ego- personality has split off from it; on the contrary, the two figures represent a disturbing accretion. The reason for their behaving in this way is that though the contents of anima and animus can be integrated they themselves cannot, since they are archetypes. As such they are the foundation stones of the psychic structure, which in its totality exceeds the limits of consciousness and therefore can never become the object of direct cognition. Though the effects of anima and animus can be made conscious, they themselves are factors transcending consciousness and be- yond the reach of perception and volition. Hence they remain autonomous despite the integration of their contents, and for this reason they should be borne constantly in mind. This is extremely important from the therapeutic standpoint, because constant observation pays the unconscious a tribute that more or less guarantees its co-operation. The unconscious as we know can never be "done with" once and for all. It is, in fact, one of the most important tasks of psychic hygiene to pay continual attention to the symptomatology of unconscious contents and processes, for the good reason that the conscious mind is always in danger of becoming one-sided, of keeping to well-worn paths and getting stuck in blind alleys. The complementary and com- pensating function of the unconscious ensures that these dan- gers, which are especially great in neurosis, can in some measure be avoided. It is only under ideal conditions, when life is still simple and unconscious enough to follow the serpentine path of instinct without hesitation or misgiving, that the compensation works with entire success. The more civilized, the more uncon- 20 the syzygy: anima and animus scious and complicated a man is, the less he is able to follow his instincts. His complicated living conditions and the influence of his environment are so strong that they drown the quiet voice of nature. Opinions, beliefs, theories, and collective tendencies appear in its stead and back up all the aberrations of the con- scious mind. Deliberate attention should then be given to the unconscious so that the compensation can set to work. Hence it is especially important to picture the archetypes of the uncon- scious not as a rushing phantasmagoria of fugitive images but as constant, autonomous factors, which indeed they are. Both these archetypes, as practical experience shows, possess a fatality that can on occasion produce tragic results. They are quite literally the father and mother of all the disastrous entan- glements of fate and have long been recognized as such by the whole world. Together they form a divine pair, 5 one of whom, in accordance with his Logos nature, is characterized by pneuma and nous, rather like Hermes with his ever-shifting hues, while the other, in accordance with her Eros nature, wears the features of Aphrodite, Helen (Selene), Persephone, and Hecate. Both of them are unconscious powers, "gods" in fact, as the ancient world quite rightly conceived them to be. To call them by this name is to give them that central position in the scale of psychological values which has always been theirs whether con- sciously acknowledged or not; for their power grows in propor- tion to the degree that they remain unconscious. Those who do not see them are in their hands, just as a typhus epidemic flour- ishes best when its source is undiscovered. Even in Christianity the divine syzygy has not become obsolete, but occupies the highest place as Christ and his bride the Church. 6 Parallels like these prove extremely helpful in our attempts to find the right 5 Naturally this is not meant as a psychological definition, let alone a metaphysi- cal one. As I pointed out in "The Relations between the Ego and the Uncon- scious" (pars. 296!!.), the syzygy consists of three elements: the femininity pertain- ing to the man and the masculinity pertaining to the woman; the experience which man has of woman and vice versa; and, finally, the masculine and femi- nine archetypal image. The first element can be integrated into the personality by the process of conscious realization, but the last one cannot. 6 "For the Scripture says, God made man male and female; the male is Christ, the female is the Church." — Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, xiv, 2 (trans, by Lake, I, p. 151). In pictorial representations, Mary often takes the place of the Church. 21 AION criterion for gauging the significance of these two archetypes. What we can discover about them from the conscious side is so slight as to be almost imperceptible. It is only when we throw light into the dark depths of the psyche and explore the strange and tortuous paths of human fate that it gradually becomes clear to us how immense is the influence wielded by these two factors that complement our conscious life. 42 Recapitulating, I should like to emphasize that the integra- tion of the shadow, or the realization of the personal uncon- scious, marks the first stage in the analytic process, and that with- out it a recognition of anima and animus is impossible. The shadow can be realized only through a relation to a partner, and anima and animus only through a relation to a partner of the opposite sex, because only in such a relation do their projec- tions become operative. The recognition of the anima gives rise, in a man, to a triad, one third of which is transcendent: the masculine subject, the opposing feminine subject, and the tran- scendent anima. With a woman the situation is reversed. The missing fourth element that would make the triad a quaternity is, in a man, the archetype of the Wise Old Man, which I have not discussed here, and in a woman the Chthonic Mother. These four constitute a half immanent and half transcendent quaternity, an archetype which I have called the marriage quaternio. 7 The marriage quaternio provides a schema not only for the self but also for the structure of primitive society with its cross-cousin marriage, marriage classes, and division of settlements into quarters. The self, on the other hand, is a God- image, or at least cannot be distinguished from one. Of this the early Christian spirit was not ignorant, otherwise Clement of Alexandria could never have said that he who knows himself knows God. 8 7 "The Psychology of the Transference," pars. 425ff. Cf. infra, pars. 3583., the Naassene quaternio. 8 Cf. infra, par. 347. 22 IV THE SELF 1 43 We shall now turn to the question of whether the increase in self-knowledge resulting from the withdrawal of impersonal projections— in other words, the integration of the contents of the collective unconscious— exerts a specific influence on the ego- personality. To the extent that the integrated contents are parts of the self, we can expect this influence to be considerable. Their assimilation augments not only the area of the field of consciousness but also the importance of the ego, especially when, as usually happens, the ego lacks any critical approach to the unconscious. In that case it is easily overpowered and be- comes identical with the contents that have been assimilated. In this way, for instance, a masculine consciousness comes under the influence of the anima and can even be possessed by her. 44 I have discussed the wider effects of the integration of un- conscious contents elsewhere 2 and can therefore omit going into details here. I should only like to mention that the more numer- ous and the more significant the unconscious contents which are assimilated to the ego, the closer the approximation of the ego to the self, even though this approximation must be a never- ending process. This inevitably produces an inflation of the ego, 3 unless a critical line of demarcation is drawn between it and the unconscious figures. But this act of discrimination yields prac- tical results only if it succeeds in fixing reasonable boundaries to the ego and in granting the figures of the unconscious— the self, anima, animus, and shadow— relative autonomy and reality 1 The material for this chapter is drawn from a paper, "t)ber das Selbst," pub- lished in the Eranos-Jahrbuch 1948. 2 "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious." 3 In the sense of the words used in I Cor. 5 : 2: "Infiati estis [ire^vatdjfjievoi] et non magis luctum habuistis" (And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned)— with reference to a case of tolerated incest with the mother ("that a man should have his father's wife"). 23 AION (of a psychic nature). To psychologize this reality out of exist- ence either is ineffectual, or else merely increases the inflation of the ego. One cannot dispose of facts by declaring them unreal. The projection-making factor, for instance, has undeniable reality. Anyone who insists on denying it becomes identical with it, which is not only dubious in itself but a positive danger to the well-being of the individual. Everyone who has dealings with such cases knows how perilous an inflation can be. No more than a flight of steps or a smooth floor is needed to precipitate a fatal fall. Besides the "pride goeth before a fall" motif there are other factors of a no less disagreeable psychosomatic and psychic nature which serve to reduce "puffed-up-ness." This condition should not be interpreted as one of conscious self-aggrandize- ment. Such is far from being the rule. In general we are not directly conscious of this condition at all, but can at best infer its existence indirectly from the symptoms. These include the re- actions of our immediate environment. Inflation magnifies the blind spot in the eye, and the more we are assimilated by the projection-making factor, the greater becomes the tendency to identify with it. A clear symptom of this is our growing disin- clination to take note of the reactions of the environment and pay heed to them. 45 It must be reckoned a psychic catastrophe when the ego is assimilated by the self. The image of wholeness then remains in the unconscious, so that on the one hand it shares the archaic nature of the unconscious and on the other finds itself in the psychically relative space-time continuum that is characteristic of the unconscious as such. 4 Both these qualities are numinous and hence have an unlimited determining effect on ego-con- sciousness, which is differentiated, i.e., separated, from the un- conscious and moreover exists in an absolute space and an absolute time. It is a vital necessity that this should be so. If, therefore, the ego falls for any length of time under the control of an unconscious factor, its adaptation is disturbed and the way opened for all sorts of possible accidents. 46 Hence it is of the greatest importance that the ego should be anchored in the world of consciousness and that conscious- ness should be reinforced by a very precise adaptation. For this, certain virtues like attention, conscientiousness, patience, etc., 4 Cf. "On the Nature of the Psyche," pars. 414s., 439,ff. 24 THE SELF are of great value on the moral side, just as accurate observation of the symptomatology of the unconscious and objective self- criticism are valuable on the intellectual side. 47 However, accentuation of the ego personality and the world of consciousness may easily assume such proportions that the figures of the unconscious are psychologized and the self conse- quently becomes assimilated to the ego. Although this is the exact opposite of the process we have just described it is fol- lowed by the same result: inflation. The world of consciousness must now be levelled down in favour of the reality of the un- conscious. In the first case, reality had to be protected against an archaic, "eternal" and "ubiquitous" dream-state; in the second, room must be made for the dream at the expense of the world of consciousness. In the first case, mobilization of all the virtues is indicated; in the second, the presumption of the ego can only be damped down by moral defeat. This is necessary, because otherwise one will never attain that median degree of modesty which is essential for the maintenance of a balanced state. It is not a question, as one might think, of relaxing morality itself but of making a moral effort in a different direction. For in- stance, a man who is not conscientious enough has to make a moral effort in order to come up to the mark; while for one who is sufficiently rooted in the world through his own efforts it is no small moral achievement to inflict defeat on his virtues by loosening his ties with the world and reducing his adaptive per- formance. (One thinks in this connection of Brother Klaus, now canonized, who for the salvation of his soul left his wife to her own devices, along with numerous progeny.) 48 Since real moral problems all begin where the penal code leaves off, their solution can seldom or never depend on prece- dent, much less on precepts and commandments. The real moral problems spring from conflicts of duty. Anyone who is suf- ficiently humble, or easy-going, can always reach a decision with the help of some outside authority. But one who trusts others as little as himself can never reach a decision at all, unless it is brought about in the manner which Common Law calls an "Act of God." The Oxford Dictionary defines this concept as the "action of uncontrollable natural forces." In all such cases there is an unconscious authority which puts an end to doubt by creating a fait accompli. (In the last analysis this is true also of 25 AION those who get their decision from a higher authority, only in more veiled form.) One can describe this authority either as the "will of God" or as an "action of uncontrollable natural forces," though psychologically it makes a good deal of difference how one thinks of it. The rationalistic interpretation of this inner authority as "natural forces" or the instincts satisfies the modern intellect but has the great disadvantage that the apparent vic- tory of instinct offends our moral self-esteem; hence we like to persuade ourselves that the matter has been decided solely by the rational motions of the will. Civilized man has such a fear of the "crimen laesae maiestatis humanae" that whenever pos- sible he indulges in a retrospective coloration of the facts in order to cover up the feeling of having suffered a moral defeat. He prides himself on what he believes to be his self-control and the omnipotence of his will, and despises the man who lets him- self be outwitted by mere nature. 49 If, on the other hand, the inner authority is conceived as the "will of God" (which implies that "natural forces" are divine forces), our self-esteem is benefited because the decision then appears to be an act of obedience and the result a divine inten- tion. This way of looking at it can, with some show of justice, be accused not only of being very convenient but of cloaking moral laxity in the mantle of virtue. The accusation, however, is justified only when one is in fact knowingly hiding one's own egoistic opinion behind a hypocritical facade of words. But this is by no means the rule, for in most cases instinctive tendencies assert themselves for or against one's subjective interests no matter whether an outside authority approves or not. The inner authority does not need to be consulted first, as it is present at the outset in the intensity of the tendencies struggling for deci- sion. In this struggle the individual is never a spectator only; he takes part in it more or less "voluntarily" and tries to throw the weight of his feeling of moral freedom into the scales of decision. Nevertheless, it remains a matter of doubt how much his seemingly free decision has a causal, and possibly uncon- scious, motivation. This may be quite as much an "act of God" as any natural cataclysm. The problem seems to me unanswer- able, because we do not know where the roots of the feeling of moral freedom lie; and yet they exist no less surely than the instincts, which are felt as compelling forces. 26 THE SELF 50 All in all, it is not only more beneficial but more "cor- rect" psychologically to explain as the "will of God" the natural forces that appear in us as instincts. In this way we find our- selves living in harmony with the habitus of our ancestral psy- chic life; that is, we function as man has functioned at all times and in all places. The existence of this habitus is proof of its via- bility, for, if it were not viable, all those who obeyed it would long since have perished of maladaptation. On the other hand, by conforming to it one has a reasonable life expectancy. When an habitual way of thinking guarantees as much as this there is not only no ground for declaring it incorrect but, on the con- trary, every reason to take it as "true" or "correct" in the psy- chological sense. Psychological truths are not metaphysical insights; they are habitual modes of thinking, feeling, and be- having which experience has proved appropriate and useful. 5 1 So when I say that the impulses which we find in ourselves should be understood as the "will of God," I wish to emphasize that they ought not to be regarded as an arbitrary wishing and willing, but as absolutes which one must learn how to handle correctly. The will can control them only in part. It may be able to suppress them, but it cannot alter their nature, and what is suppressed comes up again in another place in altered form, but this time loaded with a resentment that makes the otherwise harmless natural impulse our enemy. I should also like the term "God" in the phrase "the will of God" to be understood not so much in the Christian sense as in the sense intended by Diotima, when she said: "Eros, dear Socrates, is a mighty daemon." The Greek words daimon and daimonion express a determining power which comes upon man from outside, like providence or fate, though the ethical decision is left to man. He must know, however, what he is deciding about and what he is doing. Then, if he obeys he is following not just his own opinion, and if he rejects he is destroying not just his own invention. 52 The purely biological or scientific standpoint falls short in psychology because it is, in the main, intellectual only. That this should be so is not a disadvantage, since the methods of natural science have proved of great heuristic value in psycho- logical research. But the psychic phenomenon cannot be grasped in its totality by the intellect, for it consists not only of mean- ing but also of value, and this depends on the intensity of the 27 AION accompanying feeling-tones. Hence at least the two "rational" functions B are needed in order to map out anything like a com- plete diagram of a given psychic content. 53 If, therefore, in dealing with psychic contents one makes allowance not only for intellectual judgments but for value judgments as well, not only is the result a more complete picture of the content in question, but one also gets a better idea of the particular position it holds in the hierarchy of psychic contents in general. The feeling-value is a very important criterion which psychology cannot do without, because it determines in large measure the role which the content will play in the psychic economy. That is to say, the affective value gives the measure of the intensity of an idea, and the intensity in its turn expresses that idea's energic tension, its effective potential. The shadow, for instance, usually has a decidedly negative feeling- value, while the anima, like the animus, has more of a positive one. Whereas the shadow is accompanied by more or less definite and describable feeling-tones, the anima and animus exhibit feeling qualities that are harder to define. Mostly they are felt to be fascinating or numinous. Often they are surrounded by an atmosphere of sensitivity, touchy reserve, secretiveness, painful intimacy, and even absoluteness. The relative autonomy of the anima- and animus-figures expresses itself in these qualities. In order of affective rank they stand to the shadow very much as the shadow stands in relation to ego-consciousness. The main affective emphasis seems to lie on the latter; at any rate it is able, by means of a considerable expenditure of energy, to repress the shadow, at least temporarily. But if for any reason the unconscious gains the upper hand, then the valency of the shadow and of the other figures increases proportionately, so that the scale of values is reversed. What lay furthest away from waking consciousness and seemed unconscious assumes, as it were, a threatening shape, and the affective value increases the higher up the scale you go: ego-consciousness, shadow, anima, self. This reversal of the conscious waking state occurs regularly during the transition from waking to sleeping, and what then emerge most vividly are the very things that were unconscious by day. Every abaissement du niveau mental brings about a relative reversal of values. 5 Cf. Psychological Types, Deis., "Rational" and "Irrational. 28 THE SELF 54 I am speaking here of the subjective feeling- value, which is subject to the more or less periodic changes described above. But there are also objective values which are founded on a con- sensus omnium— moral, aesthetic, and religious values, for instance, and these are universally recognized ideals or feeling- toned collective ideas (Levy-Bruhl's "representations collec- tives"). 6 The subjective feeling-tones or "value quanta" are easily recognized by the kind and number of constellations, or symptoms of disturbance, 7 they produce. Collective ideals often have no subjective feeling-tone, but nevertheless retain their feeling-value. This value, therefore, cannot be demonstrated by subjective symptoms, though it may be by the attributes attaching to these collective ideas and by their characteristic symbolism, quite apart from their suggestive effect. 55 The problem has a practical aspect, since it may easily hap- pen that a collective idea, though significant in itself, is— be- cause of its lack of subjective feeling- tone— represented in a dream only by a subsidiary attribute, as when a god is repre- sented by his theriomorphic attribute, etc. Conversely, the idea may appear in consciousness lacking the affective emphasis that properly belongs to it, and must then be transposed back into its archetypal context— a task that is usually discharged by poets and prophets. Thus Holderlin, in his "Hymn to Liberty," lets this concept, worn stale by frequent use and misuse, rise up again in its pristine splendour: Since her arm out of the dust has raised me, Beats my heart so boldly and serene; And my cheek still tingles with her kisses, Flushed and glowing where her lips have been. Every word she utters, by her magic Rises new-created, without flaw; Hearken to the tidings of my goddess, Hearken to the Sovereign, and adore! 8 56 It is not difficult to see here that the idea of liberty has been changed back to its original dramatic state— into the shining 6 Les Fonctions mentales dans les societis inferieures. 1 "On Psychic Energy," pars. 14ft., 2off. ZSamtliche Werke, I, p. 126. 29 AION figure of the anima, freed from the weight of the earth and the tyranny of the senses, the psychopomp who leads the way to the Elysian fields. 57 The first case we mentioned, where the collective idea is represented in a dream by a lowly aspect of itself, is certainly the more frequent: the "goddess" appears as a black cat, and the Deity as the lapis exilis (stone of no worth). Interpretation then demands a knowledge of certain things which have less to do with zoology and mineralogy than with the existence of an his- torical consensus omnium in regard to the object in question. These "mythological" aspects are always present, even though in a given case they may be unconscious. If for instance one doesn't happen to recall, when considering whether to paint the garden gate green or white, that green is the colour of life and hope, the symbolic aspect of "green" is nevertheless present as an unconscious sous-entendu. So we find something which has the highest significance for the life of the unconscious standing lowest on the scale of conscious values, and vice versa. The fig- ure of the shadow already belongs to the realm of bodiless phan- toms—not to speak of anima and animus, which do not seem to appear at all except as projections upon our fellow human be- ings. As for the self, it is completely outside the personal sphere, and appears, if at all, only as a religious mythologem, and its symbols range from the highest to the lowest. Anyone who iden- tifies with the daylight half of his psychic life will therefore declare the dreams of the night to be null and void, notwith- standing that the night is as long as the day and that all con- sciousness is manifestly founded on unconsciousness, is rooted in it and every night is extinguished in it. What is more, psycho- pathology knows with tolerable certainty what the unconscious can do to the conscious, and for this reason devotes to the un- conscious an attention that often seems incomprehensible to the layman. We know, for instance, that what is small by day is big at night, and the other way round; thus we also know that besides the small by day there always looms the big by night, even when it is invisible. 58 This knowledge is an essential prerequisite for any integra- tion—that is to say a content can only be integrated when its double aspect has become conscious and when it is grasped not merely intellectually but understood according to its feeling- 30 THE SELF value. Intellect and feeling, however, are difficult to put into one harness— they conflict with one another by definition. Who- ever identifies with an intellectual standpoint will occasionally find his feeling confronting him like an enemy in the guise of the anima; conversely, an intellectual animus will make violent attacks on the feeling standpoint. Therefore, anyone who wants to achieve the difficult feat of realizing something not only intel- lectually, but also according to its feeling-value, must for better or worse come to grips with the anima /animus problem in order to open the way for a higher union, a coniunctio oppositorum. This is an indispensable prerequisite for wholeness. 59 Although "wholeness" seems at first sight to be nothing but an abstract idea (like anima and animus), it is nevertheless em- pirical in so far as it is anticipated by the psyche in the form of spontaneous or autonomous symbols. These are the quaternity or mandala symbols, which occur not only in the dreams of modern people who have never heard of them, but are widely disseminated in the historical records of many peoples and many epochs. Their significance as symbols of unity and totality is amply confirmed by history as well as by empirical psychology. What at first looks like an abstract idea stands in reality for something that exists and can be experienced, that demonstrates its a priori presence spontaneously. Wholeness is thus an objec- tive factor that confronts the subject independently of him, like anima or animus; and just as the latter have a higher position in the hierarchy than the shadow, so wholeness lays claim to a posi- tion and a value superior to those of the syzygy. The syzygy seems to represent at least a substantial portion of it, if not ac- tually two halves of the totality formed by the royal brother- sister pair, and hence the tension of opposites from which the divine child 9 is born as the symbol of unity. Unity and totality stand at the highest point on the scale of objective values because their symbols can no longer be distin- guished from the imago Dei. Hence all statements about the God-image apply also to the empirical symbols of totality. Expe- rience shows that individual mandalas are symbols of order, and that they occur in patients principally during times of psychic »C£. my "Psychology of the Child Archetype"; also Psychology and Alchemy, index, s.v. "Alius Philosophorum," "child," "hermaphrodite." 31 60 AION disorientation or re-orientation. As magic circles they bind and subdue the lawless powers belonging to the world of darkness, and depict or create an order that transforms the chaos into a cosmos. 10 The mandala at first comes into the conscious mind as an unimpressive point or dot, 11 and a great deal of hard and painstaking work as well as the integration of many projections are generally required before the full range of the symbol can be anything like completely understood. If this insight were purely intellectual it could be achieved without much difficulty, for the world-wide pronouncements about the God within us and above us, about Christ and the corpus mysticum, the per- sonal and suprapersonal atman, etc., are all formulations that can easily be mastered by the philosophic intellect. This is the common source of the illusion that one is then in possession of the thing itself. But actually one has acquired nothing more than its name, despite the age-old prejudice that the name mag- ically represents the thing, and that it is sufficient to pronounce the name in order to posit the thing's existence. In the course of the millennia the reasoning mind has been given every oppor- tunity to see through the futility of this conceit, though that has done nothing to prevent the intellectual mastery of a thing from being accepted at its face value. It is precisely our experiences in psychology which demonstrate as plainly as could be wished that the intellectual "grasp" of a psychological fact produces no more than a concept of it, and that a concept is no more than a name, a flatus vocis. These intellectual counters can be bandied about easily enough. They pass lightly from hand to hand, for they have no weight or substance. They sound full but are hol- low; and though purporting to designate a heavy task and obli- gation, they commit us to nothing. The intellect is undeniably useful in its own field, but is a great cheat and illusionist outside of it whenever it tries to manipulate values. 61 It would seem that one can pursue any science with the intel- lect alone except psychology, whose subject— the psyche— has more than the two aspects mediated by sense-perception and thinking. The function of value— feeling— is an integral part of our conscious orientation and ought not to be missing in a psy- chological judgment of any scope, otherwise the model we are trying to build of the real process will be incomplete. Every 10 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, Part II, ch. 3. 11 [Cf. infra, par. 340.] 32 THE SELF psychic process has a value quality attached to it, namely its feeling-tone. This indicates the degree to which the subject is affected by the process or how much it means to him (in so far as the process reaches consciousness at all). It is through the "affect" that the subject becomes involved and so comes to feel the whole weight of reality. The difference amounts roughly to that between a severe illness which one reads about in a text- book and the real illness which one has. In psychology one pos- sesses nothing unless one has experienced it in reality. Hence a purely intellectual insight is not enough, because one knows only the words and not the substance of the thing from inside. 62 There are far more people who are afraid of the unconscious than one would expect. They are even afraid of their own shadow. And when it comes to the anima and animus, this fear turns to panic. For the syzygy does indeed represent the psychic contents that irrupt into consciousness in a psychosis (most clearly of all in the paranoid forms of schizophrenia). 12 The overcoming of this fear is often a moral achievement of un- usual magnitude, and yet it is not the only condition that must be fulfilled on the way to a real experience of the self. 6 3 The shadow, the syzygy, and the self are psychic factors of which an adequate picture can be formed only on the basis of a fairly thorough experience of them. Just as these concepts arose out of an experience of reality, so they can be elucidated only by further experience. Philosophical criticism will find everything to object to in them unless it begins by recognizing that they are concerned with facts, and that the "concept" is simply an abbreviated description or definition of these facts. Such criticism has as little effect on the object as zoological criti- cism on a duck-billed platypus. It is not the concept that mat- ters; the concept is only a word, a counter, and it has meaning and use only because it stands for a certain sum of experience. Unfortunately I cannot pass on this experience to my public. I have tried in a number of publications, with the help of case material, to present the nature of these experiences and also the method of obtaining them. Wherever my methods were really applied the facts I give have been confirmed. One could see the 12 A classic case is the one published by Nelken: "Analytische Beobachtungen uber Phantasien eines Schizophrenen." Another is Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. 33 AION moons of Jupiter even in Galileo's day if one took the trouble to use his telescope. 6 4 Outside the narrower field of professional psychology these figures meet with understanding from all who have any knowl- edge of comparative mythology. They have no difficulty in rec- ognizing the shadow as the adverse representative of the dark chthonic world, a figure whose characteristics are universal. The syzygy is immediately comprehensible as the psychic prototype of all divine couples. Finally the self, on account of its empirical peculiarities, proves to be the eidos behind the supreme ideas of unity and totality that are inherent in all monotheistic and monistic systems. 6 5 I regard these parallels as important because it is possible, through them, to relate so-called metaphysical concepts, which have lost their root connection with natural experience, to liv- ing, universal psychic processes, so that they can recover their true and original meaning. In this way the connection is re- established between the ego and projected contents now formu- lated as "metaphysical" ideas. Unfortunately, as already said, the fact that metaphysical ideas exist and are believed in does nothing to prove the actual existence of their content or of the object they refer to, although the coincidence of idea and reality in the form of a special psychic state, a state of grace, should not be deemed impossible, even if the subject cannot bring it about by an act of will. Once metaphysical ideas have lost their capac- ity to recall and evoke the original experience they have not only become useless but prove to be actual impediments on the road to wider development. One clings to possessions that have once meant wealth; and the more ineffective, incomprehensible, and lifeless they become the more obstinately people cling to them. (Naturally it is only sterile ideas that they cling to; living ideas have content and riches enough, so there is no need to cling to them.) Thus in the course of time the meaningful turns into the meaningless. This is unfortunately the fate of meta- physical ideas. 66 Today it is a real problem what on earth such ideas can mean. The world— so far as it has not completely turned its back on tradition— has long ago stopped wanting to hear a "message"; it would rather be told what the message means. The words that resound from the pulpit are incomprehensible and cry for an 34 THE SELF explanation. How has the death of Christ brought us redemp- tion when no one feels redeemed? In what way is Jesus a God- man and what is such a being? What is the Trinity about, and the parthenogenesis, the eating of the body and the drinking of the blood, and all the rest of it? What connection can there be between the world of such concepts and the everyday world, whose material reality is the concern of natural science on the widest possible scale? At least sixteen hours out of twenty-four we live exclusively in this everyday world, and the remaining eight we spend preferably in an unconscious condition. Where and when does anything take place to remind us even remotely of phenomena like angels, miraculous feedings, beatitudes, the resurrection of the dead, etc.? It was therefore something of a discovery to find that during the unconscious state of sleep intervals occur, called "dreams," which occasionally contain scenes having a not inconsiderable resemblance to the motifs of mythology. For myths are miracle tales and treat of all those things which, very often, are also objects of belief. 6 7 In the everyday world of consciousness such things hardly exist; that is to say, until 1933 only lunatics would have been found in possession of living fragments of mythology. After this date the world of heroes and monsters spread like a devastating fire over whole nations, proving that the strange world of myth had suffered no loss of vitality during the centuries of reason and enlightenment. If metaphysical ideas no longer have such a fascinating effect as before, this is certainly not due to any lack of primitivity in the European psyche, but simply and solely to the fact that the erstwhile symbols no longer express what is now welling up from the unconscious as the end-result of the development of Christian consciousness through the centuries. This end-result is a true antimimon pneuma, a false spirit of arrogance, hysteria, woolly-mindedness, criminal amorality, and doctrinaire fanaticism, a purveyor of shoddy spiritual goods, spurious art, philosophical stutterings, and Utopian humbug, fit only to be fed wholesale to the mass man of today. That is what the post-Christian spirit looks like. 35 CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF 68 The dechristianization of our world, the Luciferian develop- ment of science and technology, and the frightful material and moral destruction left behind by the second World War have been compared more than once with the eschatological events foretold in the New Testament. These, as we know, are con- cerned with the coming of the Antichrist: "This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son." x "Every spirit that dis- solved! Jesus ... is Antichrist ... of whom you have heard that he cometh." 2 The Apocalypse is full of expectations of ter- rible things that will take place at the end of time, before the marriage of the Lamb. This shows plainly that the anima Chris- tiana has a sure knowledge not only of the existence of an adversary but also of his future usurpation of power. 6 9 Why— my reader will ask— do I discourse here upon Christ and his adversary, the Antichrist? Our discourse necessarily brings us to Christ, because he is the still living myth of our culture. He is our culture hero, who, regardless of his historical existence, embodies the myth of the divine Primordial Man, the mystic Adam. It is he who occupies the centre of the Christian mandala, who is the Lord of the Tetramorph, i.e., the four sym- bols of the evangelists, which are like the four columns of his throne. He is in us and we in him. His kingdom is the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field, the grain of mus- tard seed which will become a great tree, and the heavenly 1 1 John 2 : 22 (DV). 2 I John 4 : 3 (DV). The traditional view of the Church is based on II Thessalo- nians 2 : 3ff., which speaks of the apostasy, of the SivOpw-rros rijs avofxias (man of lawlessness) and the vlbs rijs d7rw\et'as (son of perdition) who herald the coming of the Lord. This "lawless one" will set himself up in the place of God, but will finally be slain by the Lord Jesus "with the breath of his mouth." He will work wonders /car' evepyeiav rod oarava. (according to the working of Satan). Above all, he will reveal himself by his lying and deceitfulness. Daniel 1 1 : 36ft. is regarded as a prototype. 36 CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF city. 8 As Christ is in us, so also is his heavenly kingdom. 4 7° These few, familiar references should be sufficient to make the psychological position of the Christ symbol quite clear. Christ exemplifies the archetype of the self. 5 He represents a totality of a divine or heavenly kind, a glorified man, a son of God sine macula peccati, unspotted by sin. As Adam secundus he corresponds to the first Adam before the Fall, when the latter was still a pure image of God, of which Tertullian (d. 222) says: "And this therefore is to be considered as the image of God in man, that the human spirit has the same motions and senses as God has, though not in the same way as God has them." 6 Origen (185-254) is very much more explicit: The imago Dei imprinted on the soul, not on the body, 7 is an image of an image, "for my soul is not directly the image of God, but is made after the like- ness of the former image." 8 Christ, on the other hand, is the 3 For "city" cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pp. 104s. 4 'H paaiXela rov 6eov ivrbs vfiwv toriv (The kingdom of God is within you [or "among you"]). "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there!" for it is within and everywhere. (Luke 17 : 2of.) "It is not of this [external] world." (John 18 : 36.) The likeness of the kingdom of God to man is explicitly stated in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13 : 24, Cf. also Matthew 13 : 45, 18 : 23, 22 : 2). The papyrus fragments from Oxyrhyn- chus say: . . . if /3ao-[i\eta riav ovpavtav] ivrbs v/xcov [£]<TTt [xai forris Sip eavrbv] yvu> ravTtjv evp'ij[cei\ eavrovs yvwaeade kt\. (The kingdom of heaven is within you, and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it. Know yourselves.) Cf. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 26, and Grenfell and Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus, p. 15. 5 Cf. my observations on Christ as archetype in "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," pars. 226ff. 6 "Et haec ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod eosdem motus et sensus habeat humanus animus, quos et Deus, licet non tales quales Deus" (Adv. Mar- cion., II, xvi; in Migne, P.L., vol. 2, col. 304). 7 Contra Celsum, VIII, 49 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 1590): "In anima, non in corpore impressus sit imaginis conditoris character" (The character of the image of the Creator is imprinted on the soul, not on the body). (Cf. trans, by H. Chad- wick, p. 488.) 8 In Lucam homilia, VIII (Migne, P.G., vol. 13, col. 1820): "Si considerem Domi- num Salvatorem imaginem esse invisibilis Dei, et videam animam meam factam ad imaginem conditoris, ut imago esset imaginis: neque enim anima mea spe- cialiter imago est Dei, sed ad similitudinem imaginis prioris effecta est" (If I consider that the Lord and Saviour is the image of the invisible God, I see that my soul is made after the image of the Creator, so as to be an image of an image; for my soul is not directly the image of God, but is made after the likeness of the former image). 37 AION true image of God, 9 after whose likeness our inner man is made, invisible, incorporeal, incorrupt, and immortal. 10 The God- image in us reveals itself through "prudentia, iustitia, modera- tio, virtus, sapientia et disciplina." u 7 1 St. Augustine (354-430) distinguishes between the God- image which is Christ and the image which is implanted in man as a means or possibility of becoming like God. 12 The God- image is not in the corporeal man, but in the anima rationalis, the possession of which distinguishes man from animals. "The God-image is within, not in the body. . . . Where the under- standing is, where the mind is, where the power of investigating truth is, there God has his image." 13 Therefore we should re- mind ourselves, says Augustine, that we are fashioned after the image of God nowhere save in the understanding: ". . . but where man knows himself to be made after the image of God, 9 De principiis, I, ii, 8 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 156): "Salvator figura est sub- stantiae vel subsistentiae Dei" (The Saviour is the figure of the substance or sub- sistence of God). In Genesim homilia, I, 13 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 156): "Quae est ergo alia imago Dei ad cuius imaginis similitudinem factus est homo, nisi Salvator noster, qui est primogenitus omnis creaturae?" (What else therefore is the image of God after the likeness of which image man was made, but our Saviour, who is the first born of every creature?) Selecta in Genesim, IX, 6 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 107): "Imago autem Dei invisibilis salvator" (But the image of the invisible God is the saviour). 10 in Gen. horn., I, 13 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 155): "Is autem qui ad imaginem Dei factus est et ad similitudinem, interior homo noster est, invisibilis et incor- poralis, et incorruptus atque immortalis" (But that which is made after the image and similitude of God is our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorrupt, and immortal). 11 De princip., IV, 37 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 412). 12 Retractationes, I, xxvi (Migne, P.L., vol. 32, col. 626): "(Unigenitus) . . . tan- tummodo imago est, non ad imaginem" (The Only-Begotten . . . alone is the image, not after the image). 13 Enarrationes in Psalmos, XLVIII, Sermo II (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 564): "Imago Dei intus est, non est in corpore . . . ubi est intellectus, ubi est mens, ubi ratio investigandae veritatis etc. ibi habet Deus imaginem suam." Also ibid., Psalm XLII, 6 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 480): "Ergo intelligimus habere nos aliquid ubi imago Dei est, mentem scilicet atque rationem" (Therefore we under- stand that we have something in which the image of God is, namely mind and reason). Sermo XC, 10 (Migne, P.L., vol. 38, col. 566): "Veritas quaeritur in Dei imagine" (Truth is sought in the image of God), but against this the Liber de vera religione says: "in interiore homine habitat Veritas" (truth dwells in the inner man). From this it is clear that the imago Dei coincides with the interior homo. 38 CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF there he knows there is something more in him than is given to the beasts." 14 From this it is clear that the God-image is, so to speak, identical with the anima rationalis. The latter is the higher spiritual man, the homo coelestis of St Paul. 15 Like Adam before the Fall, Christ is an embodiment of the God- image, 16 whose totality is specially emphasized by St. Augustine. "The Word," he says, "took on complete manhood, as it were in its fulness: the soul and body of a man. And if you would have me put it more exactly— since even a beast of the field has a 'soul' and a body— when I say a human soul and human flesh, I mean he took upon him a complete human soul." 17 72 The God-image in man was not destroyed by the Fall but was only damaged and corrupted ("deformed"), and can be restored through God's grace. The scope of the integration is suggested by the descensus ad inferos, the descent of Christ's soul to hell, its work of redemption embracing even the dead. The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the collective unconscious which forms an essential part of the indi- viduation process. St. Augustine says: "Therefore our end must be our perfection, but our perfection is Christ," 18 since he is the perfect God-image. For this reason he is also called "King." His bride (sponsa) is the human soul, which "in an inwardly hidden spiritual mystery is joined to the Word, that two may be in one flesh," to correspond with the mystic marriage of Christ and the Church. 19 Concurrently with the continuance of this hieros 14 Enarr. in Ps., LIV, 3 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 629): "... ubi autem homo ad imaginem Dei factum se novit, ibi aliquid in se agnoscit amplius esse quam datum est pecoribus." 15 1 Cor. 15 : 47. 16 In Joannis Evangelium, Tract. LXXVIII, 3 (Migne, P.L., vol. 35, col. 1836): "Christus est Deus, anima rationalis et caro" (Christ is God, a rational soul and a body). 17 Sermo CCXXXVII, 4 (Migne, P.L., vol. 38, col. 1124): "(Verbum) suscepit totum quasi plenum hominem, animam et corpus hominis. Et si aliquid scrupulosius vis audire; quia animam et carnem habet et pecus, cum dico animam humanam et carnem humanam, totam animam humanam accepit." 18 Enarr. in Ps., LIV, 1 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 628). 19 Contra Faustum, XXI