II. The functional category is characterized by

the fact that the condition, structure or capacity for work of the individual consciousness (or the psychic apparatus) is itself portrayed. It is termed func- tional because it has nothing to do with the material or the contents of the act of thinking, but applies merely to manner and method in which conscious-
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ness functions (rapid, slow, easy, hard, obstructed, careless, joyful, forced; fruitless, successful; dis- united, split into complexes, united, interchangeable, troubled, etc.) . [It is immaterial whether these are conscious or unconscious. Thinking must be taken here in the widest possible sense. It means here all psychic processes that can have anything as an " object."]
Two typical examples will enable us at once clearly to understand the two categories and keep them separate.
A. Material Symbolism. — Conditions. In a drowsy state I reflect upon the nature of the judg- ments that are transsubjectively (= for all men) valid. All at once the thread of the abstract thought is broken and autosymbolically in the place of it is presented the following hypnagogic halluci- nation :
Symbol. An enormous circle, or transparent sphere, floats in the air and men are putting their heads into this circle.
Interpretation. In this symbol everything that I was thinking of is expressed. The validity of the transsubjective concerns all men without exception; the circle goes through all the heads. This validity must have its cause in something common to all. The heads all belong to the same apparently homoge- neous sphere. Not all judgments are transsubjec- tive ; with their bodies and limbs men are outside of and under the sphere and stand on the earth as separate individuals.
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B. Functional Symbolism. — Conditions. Dreamy state as above. I reflect upon something or other, and yet in allowing myself to stray into bypaths of thought, I am diverted from my peculiar theme. When I want to get back the autosymbolic phenome- non appears.
Symbol. I am climbing mountains. The nearer mountains shut out my view of the more distant ones, from which I have come and to which I should like to return.
Meaning. I have got off the track. I have ven- tured too high and the ideas that I have entertained shut out my starting point like the mountains.
To the material category belongs, for example, the meaning of the strawberry dream explained in the second part of the introductory chapter. Straw- berry picking is a symbol for an imaged wish grati- fication (sexual intercourse), and so for an image content. The symbolism is therefore a material one. The greatly preponderating part of psycho- analytic dream literature is occupied with interpre- tation according to material categories.
To the functional categories belong, for example, the symbolism of falling asleep and waking up, which I have mentioned in the second part in con- nection with the interpretation of the parable.
The two categories of symbolism, if they never did anything but parallel each other, would afford us no analogues for our problem of double meaning. Now the cases, however, are extremely rare where
INTROVERSION 237
there is only functional or only material symbolism; the rule is an intimate interweaving of both. To be sure, one is frequently more emphasized than the other or more easily accessible, but we can generally find cases where long contexts of images are sus- ceptible of material as well as functional interpre- tation, alike in detail and continuity of connection.
The following may serve as a very simple case in point. Lying one evening in bed and exhausted and about to fall asleep, I devoted my thoughts to the laborious progress of the human spirit in the dim transcendant province of the mothers-problem. (Faust, Part II.) More and more sleepy and ever less able to retain my thoughts, I saw suddenly with the vividness of an illusion a dream image. I stood on a lonely stone pier extending far into a dark sea. The waters of the sea blended at the horizon with an equally dark-toned mysterious, heavy air. The overpowering force of this tangible picture aroused me from my half sleeping state, and I at once recog- nized that the image, so nearly an hallucination, was but a visibly symbolic embodiment of my thought content that had been allowed to lapse as a result of my fatigue. The symbol is easily recognized as such. The extension into the dark sea corresponds to the pushing on into a dark problem. The blend' ing of atmosphere and water, the imperceptible gradation from one to the other means that with the "mothers" (as Mephistopheles pictures it) all times and places are fused, that there we have no
238 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
boundaries between a " here " and a " there," an " above " and a " below," and for this reason Meph- istopheles can say to Faust on his departure,
" Plunge then. — I could as well say soar."
We see therefore between the visualized image and the thought content, which is, as it were, repre- sented by it, a number of relations. The whole image resolves itself insofar as it has characteristic features, almost entirely into such elements as are most closely related to the thought content. Apart from these connections of the material category, the image represents also my momentary psychic condi- tion (transition to sleep). Whoever is going to sleep is, as it were, in the mental state of sinking into a dark sea. (The sinking into water or darkness, entrance into a forest, etc., are frequently-occurring threshold symbols.) The clearness of ideas van- ishes there and everything melts together just as did the water and the atmosphere in the image.
This example is but to illustrate; it is in itself much too slight and simple to make any striking revelation of the remarkable interlacing of the two kinds of symbolism. I refer to my studies on sym- bolism and on dreams in the bibliography. Ex- haustive treatment at this point would lead us too far afield. Let us rest satisfied then with the facts that the psychoanalysts simultaneously deal with two fundamentally different lines of interpretation in a product of the phantasy (dream, etc.), quite apart from the multiple determinants which they can find
INTROVERSION 239
within the material as well as in the functional cate- gories; both lines of interpretation are supplied by the same fabric of images, indeed often by the same elements of this image fabric. This context there- fore must have been sought out artfully enough by the creative unconscious to answer the double re- quirement.
The coexistence of the material meaning with the functional is not entirely puzzling to the student of psychoanalysis. Two facts must be kept in mind throughout.
In the first place, we are acquainted with the prin- ciple of multiple determination or condensation. The multiplicity of the dimly moving latent dream thoughts condenses into a few clear dream forms or symbols, so that one symbol continually, as it were, appears as the representative of several ideas, and is therefore interpretable in several ways. That it should be susceptible of more than one interpreta- tion can cause no surprise because the fundamental significance (the latent thoughts) were the very ones that, by association, caused the selection of the sym- bols from an infinite series of possibilities. In the shaping of the dream, and therefore in the uncon- scious dream work, only such pictorial elements could penetrate into consciousness as satisfied the re- quirements of the multiple determination. The principle of multiple determination is valid not only within the material and the functional categories, but makes the fusion of both in the symbol in ques- tion to some extent intelligible. Elements of both
PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
categories take an active part in the choice of the symbol. On the one hand, a number of affects press on towards the symbolic representation of objects to which they direct themselves (objects of love, hate, etc.). On the other hand, the psyche takes cogni- zance of its own impulses, play of affects, etc., and this perception will gain representation. Both im- pulses take part in the choice of those symbols which thrust themselves into the nascent consciousness of phantasy, and so the dream, like the poem, etc., be- sides the symbolism of the wish tendencies (material categories) that animate them, bears the stamp of the psychic authorship (functional category) of the dreamer or the author. [Ferenczi defends the view for the myth also that the material symbolism must coincide with the functional (Imago I, p. 283).]
Secondly, it has been shown in recent times in psychoanalytic studies that symbols which were orig- inally material pass over to functional use. If we thoroughly analyze for a sufficient time the dreams of a person we shall find that certain symbols which at first probably appeared only incidentally to sig- nify some idea content, wish content, etc., return and become a persistent or typical form. And the more such a typical form is established and is impressed, the farther it is removed from its first ephemeral meaning, and the more it becomes a symbolic repre- sentative of a whole group of similar experiences, a spiritual capital, so to speak, till finally we can re- gard it simply as the representative of a spiritual current (love, hate, tendency to frivolity, to cruelty,
INTROVERSION 241
to anxiety, etc.). What has been accomplished there is a transition from the material to the func- tional on the path of a determination inward or in- tro-determination (verinnerlichung) as I shall call it. Later I shall have more to say about intro- determination. For the present this may suffice for the understanding, that the material and the func- tional symbolism, in spite of their at first apparently fundamental difference, are essentially related in some way, which is illuminated by the process of intro-determination.
The analogue of the problem of multiple inter- pretation unfolded in the preceding section is shown to be a question that can be easily answered. And we would bring our problem to a generally satisfac- tory position if we succeeded in showing that the ana- gogic interpretation, whose alignment with the psy- choanalytic seemed so impracticable, is a form of functional interpretation, or at least related to it. In this case it would be at once comprehensible how a product of the imagination harmonizes with sev- eral expositions (problem of multiple interpreta- tion) ; because this variety of sense had already oper- ated in the selection of the symbol and indeed, in those cases as well where we did not at first sight suspect the cooperation of the anagogic thoughts; secondly, the anagogic and the psychoanalytic inter- pretations are somehow reconciled to each other, whereby possibly also the position of the natural science interpretation can be made somewhat clearer.
The possibility that the anagogic has some part
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in the creation of the functional, will be brought nearer by the fact that our previously offered ana- gogic expositions (fairy tales, parabola) markedly resemble functional interpretations. In the tale of the six swans Hitchcock explains the reception of the maiden into the castle as the reception of sin into the heart; the seven children are the seven virtues (consequently spiritual tendencies). The small maiden is conscience, the tissues are processes of thought. In the story of the three feathers, again, one son is conscience ; the secret door is the entrance to the inner life, to spiritual absorption, the three feathers are spiritual tendencies, etc. In the dream of the " flying post " conscience appears as the con- ductor. The " Mills of God," which psychologi- cally also represents conscience, the more strikingly because the burden of sin, guilty feeling, drives them, also appear in the parable. The lion or the dragon which must be overcome on the mystic path is again a spiritual force. The approximation to the func- tional category is not to be denied. Processes that show an interplay of spiritual powers are symboli- cally represented there. But we are at once struck with a difference. The true functional phenomenon, as I have so far described it, pictures the actual psychic state or process ; the anagogic image appears on the contrary to point to a state or process that is to be experienced in the future. We shall pass over for a time the last topic, which will not, how- ever, be forgotten, and turn to the question as to the point on which the anagogic and the functional
INTROVERSION 243
interpretations can best be brought together. This point appears to me to be introversion, first because it is related to the previously mentioned intro-deter- mination, and second, because it is familiar to psy- choanalysis and is of great importance in anagogic method.
The term " introversion " comes from C. G. Jung. It means sinking into one's own soul; the withdrawal of interest from the outer world; the seeking for joys that can be afforded by the inner world. The psy- chology of the neuroses has led to the concept of introversion, a province, therefore, which princi- pally treats of morbid forms and functions of intro- version. The sinking of oneself into one's own soul also appears exactly as a morbid losing of oneself in it. We can speak of introversion neuroses. Jung regards dementia precox as an introversion neurosis. Freud, who has adopted the concept of introversion [with some restrictions] regards the introversion of the libido as a regular and neces- sary precondition of every psychoneurosis. Jung (Jb. ps. F., Ill, p. 159) speaks of " certain mental disturbances [he means dementia precox] which are induced by the fact that the patients retire more and more from reality, sink into their phantasy, whereby in proportion as reality loses its force, the inner world takes on a reality and determining power." We may also define introversion as a resignation of the joys of the outer world (probably unattainable or become troubled) and a seeking for the libido sources in one's own ego. So we see how gen-
244 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
erally self-chastisement, introversion and autoerot- ism are connected.
The turning away from the outer world and turn- ing in to the inner, is required by all those methods which lead to intensive exercise of religion and a mystic life. The experts in mysteries provide for opportunities that should encourage introversion. Cloisters and churches are institutions of introver- sion. The symbolism of religious doctrine and rite is full of images of introversion, which is, in short, one of the most important presuppositions of mys- ticism.
Religious and mythical symbolism has countless images for introversion; e.g., dying, going down, subterranean crypts, vaults, dark temples, into the underworld, hell, the sea, etc.; being swallowed by a monster or a fish (as Jonah), stay in the wilder- ness, etc. The symbols for introversion correspond in large part with those that I have described for going to sleep and waking (threshold symbolism), a fact that can be readily appreciated from their actual similarity. The descent of Faust to the mothers is an introversion symbol. Introversion fulfills here clearly the aim of bringing to reality, i.e., to psycho- logical reality, something that is attainable only by phantasy (world of the past, Helen).
In Jacob Boehme (De Vita Mentali) the disciple says to the master, " How may I attain suprasensu- ous life, so that I may see God and hear him speak? " The master says, " When you can lift yourself for one moment into that realm where no creature dwell-
INTROVERSION 245
eth, you will hear what God speaks." The disciple says, "Is that near or far?" The master says, " It is in yourself."
The hermetics often urge retirement, prayer and meditation, as prerequisites for the work; it is treated of still more in the hieroglyphic pictures themselves. The picture of death is already famil- iar to us from the hermetic writings, but in the tech- nical language there are still other expressions for introversion, e.g., the shutting up in the receptacle, the solution in the mercury of the sages, the return of the substance to its radical condition (by means of the " radical " or root dampness).
Similar features in our parable are the wandering in the dense forest, the stay in the lion's den, the going through the dark passage into the garden, the being shut up in the prison or, in the language of alchemy, the receptacle.
Introversion is continually connected with regres- sion. Regression, as may be recalled from the 2d section of Part I, is a harking back to more primi- tive psychic activities, from thinking to gazing, from doing to hallucinating; a striving back towards child- hood and the pleasures of childhood. Introversion accordingly is accompanied by a desire for symbolic form of expression (the mystical education is car- ried on in symbols), and causes the infantile images to revive — chiefly the mother image. It was pre- eminently father and mother who appeared as ob- jects of childish love, as well as of defiance. They are unique and imperishable, and in the life of adults
246 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
there is no difficulty in reawakening and making active those memories and those images. We easily comprehend the fact that the symbolic aim of the previously mentioned katabasis always has a mater- nal character; earth, hole, sea, belly of fish, etc., that all are symbols for mother and womb. Re- gression revives the GEdipus complex with its thoughts of incest, etc. Regression leads back to all these relics now done away with in life and repressed. It actually leads into a sort of underworld, into the world of titanic wishes, as I have called them. How far this was the case in the alchemistic parable, I have fully shown in the psychoanalytic treatment of it. Here I need merely to refer to the maternal na- ture of the symbols cited: receptacle, mercury of the sages (" mother of metals ") and radical moisture, also called " milk " and the like.
Fairy tales have frequently a very pretty func- tional symbolism for the way in which introversion leads to the mother imago. Thus the simpleton in the fairy tale of the feathers comes through the gate of introversion exactly into the family circle, to the mother that cares for him. There his love finds its satisfaction. There he even gets a daughter, replica of the mother imago, for a wife.
In the parable the wandering in the forest (intro- version) is followed by the battle (suggestive of incest) with the lion (father or mother in their awe inspiring form) ; the inclusion in the receptacle (in- troversion) by the accomplishment of the incest.
If it is now clear also that in introversion, as a
INTROVERSION 247
result of the regression that is connected with it, visions of "titanic" emotions (incest, separating of parents, etc.) are encountered, yet it has not be- come in the slightest degree comprehensible how these visions are related to the treatment of anagogic ideas. And that is indeed the question.
We can really understand these striking facts bet- ter if we recall what I have said above about the type formation and the Intro-determination of the symbols, namely, that symbols can depart from their original narrower meaning and become types for an entire class of experiences whereby an advance is made from the material to the functional meaning. Some examples will elucidate this.
I have observed particularly fine cases of intro- determination in a series of experiments in basin divination (lecanomancy) which I have carried on for several years. Lecanomancy resembles crystal gazing, except that the gazer looks into a basin of water. In the visions of my subject, Lea, typical forms were pictured, which always recurred. Re- garded as symbols they were, as subsequent analysis showed, almost all subjected to inward accentuation or intro-determination. Thus, for instance, a black cat appeared. At first it appeared as representative of Lea's grandmother, who was cat-like, malicious and fawning. Later the cat stood for the corre- sponding traits that she perceived in herself. Above all the cat is the symbol of her grandmother, so the grandmother (or cat) is a mental current of Lea. Frequently there appears in the image a Dyas, some-
248 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
times in the shape of a two-headed snake, of two hands, of two feet, or of a woman with two faces, etc. Above all, every antithesis appears to have some external meaning, two men who love «ach other, etc. So it becomes clear that the common element which finds its most pregnant expression in the double faced woman is the Dyas in itself and that it means bisexuality, psychic hermaphroditism. More than that it is definitely certain that the deepest sense of the symbol means a complete dissociation of Lea's character into two different personalities, one of which may be called the savage and the other the mild. (Lea herself uses the expressions cynical and ideal personality.) In one of the later experiments Lea saw her cynic double vividly personified and spoke in this character, which is closely related to the " black cat." The Dyas in the symbols has the value first of a. representation of externals (two lovers, etc.), then as symbols of bisexuality. The sexual Dyas can again be conceived as a symbol or characteristic of a still more general and compre- hensive dissociation of the ego. A further symbol and one still more tending towards intro-determina- tion was death. Starting from connections with definite external experiences and ideas of actual death, the meaning of the symbol became more and more spiritual, till it reached the meaning of the fading away of psychic impulses. What died sym- bolically or had to die was represented by an old man who sacrificed himself after suffering all kinds of fortune. The dying of this old man signified, as
INTROVERSION 249
analysis showed, the same thing that we call the " putting off the old Adam " (turning over a new leaf) . The figure of the old man, originally Lea's grandfather, then her father, came to have this mean- ing only after a long process of intro-determination.
A few more examples for typical figures.
In many dreams of a woman analyzed by me (Pauline, in my treatise Zur Symbolbildung) , a cow appears as a typical image. The alternation of this cow with more or less definite mother symbols leads to identification of the cow with the mother. Two circumstantial dreams that were fully analyzed showed, however, that the cow and other forms with which she alternated cannot be translated so cor- rectly by the concept of mother as by that of the maternal authority and finally still more correctly by self-criticism or conscience, of which maternal au- thority is but a type. Children figure in Pauline's case as a result of various experiences, as typical of obstacles.
In the case of another dreamer the father stands in similar relation as the determinant that paralyzes his resolutions.
The climbing of an ascent, usually a symbol of coitus (hurrying upward which makes us out of breath), turns out often in a deeper relation as the effort to get from the disagreeable things of life to a place of retreat (lonely attics, etc.), inaccessible to other persons (= thoughts); and now we see that this deeper meaning appears without prejudice to the first, for even coitus, like all transport, is only
250 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
a special case of flight from the outer life, one of the forms of spiritual oblivion. Hence in part the mythologically and psychopathologically important comparison of intoxication, intoxicating drink and sperm, soma and semen. Ascent — coitus is in this case a type for a quite comprehensive class of experi- ence.
Marcinowski found in his analyses that the father in dream life often was a " symbol of an outlived, obsolete attitude." (Z. Bl. f. Ps., II, 9.)
Other examples of types are the phallus, the sun and other religiously revered objects, if we regard them as does Jung (Wandl. u. Sym., Jb. ps. F., III- IV) as a symbol of the libido. [The concept of which is extended by Jung almost to Schopenhauer's Will.] The typical character of divine personali- ties is moreover quite clearly emphasized by Jung himself.
The snake, about whose significance as a " nega- tive phallus," etc. [developed in detail by Jung], we shall have more to say, can also be regarded as a typical image. Bull, cow and other animal forms are in mythology as in dreams typical transmutations with unlimited possibility of intro-determination. Dogs are often in dreams the representations of ani- mal propensities. The beast is often " la bete humaine " in the dreamer's own inner life. We have become acquainted with the terrible lions, the bears, etc., as father types; here we get a new per- spective which makes clear the one-sidedness of our first conception.
INTROVERSION 251
Since psychoanalysis has found acceptation, many of its followers believe they are able to solve, with their work of analysis alone, all the psychological, esthetic and mythological problems that come up. We understand only half of the psychic impulses, as indeed we do all spiritual development, if we look merely at the root. We have to regard not merely whence we come but also whither we go. Then only can the course of the psyche be comprehended, on- togenetically as well as phylogenetically, according to a dynamic scheme as it were.
If we apply this fundamental principle to sym- bolism there develops therefrom the obligation to keep both visible poles in view, between which the advance of significance, the process of intro-determi- nation is completed. (An externalization is also possible, yet the internalization or intro-determina- tion must be regarded as the normal process.) [It corresponds namely to the process of education and progress of culture. This will soon be cleared up.] To the most general type belong then, without doubt, those symbols or frequently disguised images, con- cerning which we wondered before, that besides rep- resenting " titanic " tendencies, they are fitted to represent the anagogic. The solution of the riddle is found the instant we regard these images as types with a certain degree of intro-determination, as types for a few fundamental forces of the soul, with which we are all endowed, and whose typical sym- bols are for that reason of general applicability. [I will therefore call these types the human elementary
252 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
types.] For example, if by psychoanalysis we de- duce father and mother, etc., from some of the sym- bols appearing in dreams, we have in these repre- sentations of the psychic images, as the psychoanalyst calls them, in reality derived mere types whose mean- ing will change according to the ways of viewing them, somewhat as the color of many minerals changes according to the angle at which we hold them to the light. The actual father or mother, the ex- periences that surrounded them, were the material used in the formation of the types; they were ex- ternal things even if important, while later the father, etc., emerging as symbol, may have signifi-. cance as a type of the spiritual power of the very person in question; a spiritual power to be sure, which the person in question feels to be like a father for otherwise the father figure would not be suited for the symbol. And we can go so far as to call this spiritual power a father image. That should not however, mislead us into taking that real person, who in the individual case generally (though not always) has furnished the type, for the real or the most essential. The innermost lies in ourselves and is only fashioned and exercised upon persons of the external world.
So then we get for the typical symbol a double perspective. The types are given, we can look through them forward and backward. In both cases there will be distortions of the image; we shall fre- quently see projected upon each other, things that do not belong together, we shall perceive conver-
INTROVERSION 253
gences at vanishing points which are to be ascribed only to perspective. I might for brevity's sake call the errors so resulting errors of superposition. The significance of this concept will, I hope, come to have still greater validity in psychoanalysis. [This error of superposition C. G. Jung attempts to unmask, when he writes : " As libido has a forward tend- ency, so in a way, incest is that which tends back- ward into childhood. It is not incest for the child, and only for the adult, who possesses a well con- stituted sexuality, does this regressive tendency be- come incest in that he is no longer a child, but has a sexuality that really no longer can suffer a re- gressive application." Jung, Psychology of the Un- conscious.) It may moreover be remarked that Freud also is careful not to take the incest disclosed by psychoanalysis in too physical a sense.] This error of superposition is found not only in the view backward but in the forward view. So what I, as interpreter of mystical symbolism, may say about the possible development of the soul will be affected by this error of superposition. It is not in my power to correct it. In spite of everything, the treatment of symbolism from the two points of view must be superior to the onesided treatment; in order to approximate a fundamental comprehension, which to be sure remains an ideal, the different aspects must be combined and in order to make this clear I have added a synthetic treatment to the analytic part of my work.
Looking back through the elementary types, we
254 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
see the infantile images together with those non- moral origins that psychoanalysis discovers in us; looking forward we notice thoughts directed to cer- tain goals that will be mentioned later. The ele- mentary types themselves thanks to intro-determina- tion represent however a collection of our spiritual powers, which we have first formed and exercised at the time that the images arose, and which are in their nature closely related to these images, indeed completely united with them as a result of the errors of superposition — this collection of powers, I say, accompanies us through our entire life and is that from which are taken the powers that will be re- quired for future development. The objects or ap- plications change, the powers remain almost the same. The symbolism of the material categories which depends on external things changes with them; but the symbolism of the functional categories, which reflects these powers remains constant. The types with their intro-determination belong to the func- tional categories; and so they picture the constant characters.
That experience to which the suggestions of sym- bolism (brought to verbal expression by means of introversion) point as to a possible spiritual develop- ment, corresponds to a religious ideal; when in- tensively lived out this development is called mys- ticism. [We can define mysticism as that religious state which struggles by the shortest way towards the accomplishment of the end of religion, the union with the divinity; or as an intensive cultivation of
INTROVERSION 255
oneself in order to experience this union.] It pre- sents itself if instead of looking backward we gaze forward from our elementary types to the beyond. But let us not forget that we can regard mysticism only as the most extreme, and therefore psychically the most internal, unfolding of the religious life, as the ideal which is hardly to be attained, although I consider that much is possible in this direction. If my later examination carries us right into the heart of mysticism, without making the standpoint clear every time, we now know what restrictions we must be prepared for.
If I take the view that those powers, whose images (generally veiled in symbolism) are the elementary types, do not change, I do not intend to imply that it is not possible to sublimate them. With the in- creasing education of man they support a sublimation of the human race which yet shows in recognizable form the fundamental nature of the powers. One of the most important types, in which this trans- formation process is consummated and which refines the impulse and yet allows some of its character to remain, is the type mother, i.e., incest. Among re- ligious symbols we find countless incest images but that the narrow concept of incest is no longer suited to their psychological basis (revealed through analy- sis) has been, among psychoanalysts, quite clearly recognized by Jung. Therefore in the case of every symbolism tending to ethical development, the ana- gogic point of view must be considered, and most of all in religious symbolism. The impulse cor-
256 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
responding to the religious incest symbols is pre- eminently to be conceived in the trend toward intro- version and rebirth which will be treated of later. [Vid. note C, at the end of the volume.]
I have just used the expression " sublimation." This Freudian term and concept is found in an ex- actly similar significance in the hermetic writers. In the receptacle where the mystical work of educa- tion is performed, i.e., in man, substances are sub- limated; in psychological terms this means that im- pulses are to be refined and brought from their baseness to a higher level. Freud makes it clear that the libido, particularly the unsocial sexual libido, is in favorable circumstances sublimated, i.e., changed into a socially available impelling power. This hap- pens in the evolution of the human race and is re- capitulated in the education of the individual.
I take it for granted that the fundamental char- acter of the elementary psychic powers in which the sublimation is consummated is the more recognizable the less the process of sublimation is extended in time. In mysticism, e.g., the fundamental character penetrates the primal motive because the latter wishes to lead the relatively slightly sublimated im- pulses by a shortened process to the farthest goal of sublimation. Mysticism undertakes to accom- plish in individuals a work that otherwise would take many generations. What I said therefore about the unchangeability of the fundamental pow- ers or their primal motive, is wholly true of its fate in mystical development.
INTROVERSION 257
The Mohammedan mystic Arabi (1165-1240) writes, " Love as such, in its individual life, is the same for sensuous and spiritual, therefore equally for every Arab (of an allegory) and for me, but the objects of love are different. They loved sensible phenomena while I, the mystic, love the most intimate existence." (Horten, Myst. Texte, p.
12.)
The religious-mystical applications of the funda- mental powers represented by the types, in the sense of a sublimation, does not manifest therefore in contrast to their retrospective form (titanic, pur- poseless form) an essentially foreign nature; the important novelty in them is that they no longer are used egotistically but have acquired a content that is ethically valuable, to which the intro-deter- mination was an aid. This determination, whose external aspects we have noticed in the types or sym- bols, is only the visible expression of a far more important actual intro-determination whose accom- plishment lies in an amplification of personality, and will later be considered in detail.
In the psychoanalytic consideration of the alche- mistic parable it would appear that only the titanic impulses were realized there, e.g., to have the mother as a lover and to kill the father. Now it cor- responds to a really significant intro-determination when we hear that in the alchemistic work the father is the same as the son, and when we understand that the father is a state, or psychic potentiality, of the " son," whom the latter in himself, has to con-
258 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
quer, exactly in the same manner as Lea in the leco- mantic study strove to put off the old man.
The alchemist Rulandus (Lex., p. 24) quotes the •"Turba": "Take the white tree, build him a round, dark, dew-encircled house, and set in it a hundred year-old man and close it so that no wind or dust can get to him (introversion) ; then leave him there eight days. I tell you that that man will not cease to eat of the fruit of that tree till he be- comes a youth. O what a wonderful nature, for here is the father become son and born again." Ibid : " The stone [that is in the anagogic sense, man] is at first the senex, afterwards young, so it is said films interficit patrem; the father must die, the son be born, die with each other and be renewed with each other."
We must proceed similarly if we wish to interpret the parable anagogically.
What I have already taken from the anagogic fairy tale interpretation as a symbol of introversion shows, of course, also the character of intro-deter- mination.
As for the nature of the relatively unchangeable spiritual tendencies represented by the elementary types [That can also be called in mythological study primal motives] a simple examination of the essen- tials without any psychological hair splitting, brings us at once to an elementary scheme that will help us to understand the changes (intro-determination) that take place in accordance with the elementary types. We need here only to examine the simplest
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reactions of the individual, necessarily produced by rubbing up again^the external world; reactions which become persistent forms of experience that are ap- proximately as self-evident as the libido itself. The degree of egoism which is active in the elementary tendencies must, according to the experience of psy- choanalysis, be considered very great. For this pur- pose I have selected in what follows an excessively egotistical expression for the " titanic " aspect, the retrospective form, of the tendencies; and this same excessive expression which would seem to be rather objectionable when applied to the basis of a religious development, enables us, thanks to the principle of intro-determination, to understand this development. Starting from the libido in the most general sense we arrive first of all at the two phenomena, the agreeableness and the disagreeableness, from which results at once, acceptance and aversion. Obstacles may aggravate both activities, so that acceptance becomes robbery and aversion becomes annihilation. These possibilities can to be sure only become acts in so far as they prove practically feasible. In all cases they are present in the psyche, and in this crude primal form play no small part in the soul of the child. It is indeed only a blind sentimentality that can raise the child to an angelic status, from which it is as far removed as from its opposite. We should be careful not to regard the crude form of the impulse as crude in the sense of an educated human- ity, which must see in the crudeness something mor- ally inferior. In robbery and annihilation there
26o PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
exists on the primitive or childish level hardly the slightest germ of badness. There is much to be said about the psychology and morality of the child. I cannot, however, enter very deeply into this broad topic, interesting though it is.
The primal tendencies, when directed toward the persons in the environment, produce certain typical phenomena. I can unfortunately describe them only with expressions which, if the cultured man uses them, evoke the idea of crime. An ethically colorless language should be made available for these things. [The dream and the myth have found for them the language of symbolism.] The op- position of a fellow man against the working out of an impulse arouses a tendency to overcome this man, to get him out of the way, to kill him. The type of the obstructing man is always the instructor (father, eventually mother). That he is at the same time a doer of good is less appreciated because the psychical apparatus takes the satisfaction of de- sires as the natural thing, which does not excite its energy nearly as much as does a hindrance to its sat- isfaction. [Recognition of a good deed, thankful- ness, etc., regularly presuppose sublimation ; they do not belong to the titanic aspect. A form of appreci- ation of this kindness however comes to mind. To- wards the mother there occurs on the part of the child, though it has been completely overlooked for a long time, very early and gradually increasing, a sexually-toned feeling, although the manifestations of this feeling are very dim and at times may com-
INTROVERSION 261
pletely disappear. In this " love " is contained a germ of desire, of erotic appropriation-to-self. Any woman in the environment and especially the mother must needs supply the ideal of the desired woman. In so far as the father is perceived as an obstacle to the love towards the mother he must, in the elementary tendency, be killed to remove the ob- stacle, and there arises the murder impulse belonging to the CEdipus Complex. [The child has no clear idea of death. It is only a matter of wishing to have some one out of the way. If this primal mo- tive appears to us subsequently as a " killing," it is again only because of the error of superposition, just as in the later mentioned " rape."] In so far as the mother herself does not meet the desired tenderness or in refusing, acts as a corrective agent, while carrying on the education, she, too, becomes an obstacle, a personality contrasting with the " dear " mother, a contrast which plunges the psyche in anxiety and bitterness. Anxiety comes principally from the conflict of psychical tendencies, which re- sult from the same person being both loved and hated. The correlative to the denying action of the mother is to commit rape on her. Another cause of the attraction towards the mother besides the erotically toned one, is the desire for her care, called forth by the hardships encountered elsewhere in the world. It is an indolence opposed to the duties of life. The propensity towards ease is psychologically a very important factor. The home is in general the place of protection; the characteristic embodi-
262 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
ment of this is preeminently the mother. We speak of maternal solicitude but less of paternal solicitude. I have noted the solicitous mother type in the story of the three feathers, where the mother toad be- stows the gifts from the big box. In so far as the solicitous person refuses the requests made of her and for reasons of necessity thrusts the child out into the world, or in so far as any other obstacles (demands of life) stand in the way of the gratifi- cation of the lazy, " feed me " state of mind, like the angel with the flaming sword before the entrance to paradise, so far the obstructing power appears as the type of the '* terrible " mother, a picture whose terribleness is yet intensified by the working of the incest conflict. In this aspect therefore the otherwise beloved mother is a hostile personality. To the process of education on the part of the parents, felt as pedantry by the child, or to other- wise misunderstood action, he opposes a well known defiance, and there results, as also from the attempt to change in general the rough path of life, the hopeful attempt to get a creative " improvement," which I have already discussed. The wish to die sometimes occurs. Further the obstacles that stand in the way of the full erotic life in the external world, in so far as they are insuperable or are not overcome on account of laziness, lead to auto- erotism. (That this is found even in early child- hood is for the mechanism of the impulses, a side- issue. The scheme just given is not to be regarded as a historical or chronological development, but
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the tendencies are quite as intimately connected with each other as with the acquisition of the psychical restraints that are not generally brought to view; in separating them we commit something like an error. )
We have considered the following main forces: i. Removal of obstacles. 2. Desire for the solici- tude of the parents. 3. Desire for the pleasurable [especially of the woman]. 4. Auto-erotism>. 5-6. Improvement and re-creation. 7. Death wish. The following scheme shows the retrograde (titanic) as well as the anagogic aspect of these powers, which 'later corresponds to an intro-deter- mination of the types, and a species of sublimation of impulses.
RETROGRADE ASPECT. ANAGOGIC ASPECT.
1. Killing of the father. Killing of the old Adam.
2. Desire for the mother (lazi-
ness) . Introversion.
3. Incest. Love towards an Ideal.
4. Auto-erotism Siddhi.1
5. Copulation with the mother. Spiritual regeneration.
6. Improvement. Re-creation.1
7. Death wish. Attainment of the ideal.
We need not scent anything extraordinary behind these intro-determinations, as the scheme is here indeed only roughly sketched; they take place in each and every one of us, otherwise we should be mere beasts. Only they do not in every one of us rise to the intensity of the mystical life.
1 Explained later.1
264 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
A more careful inquiry into the mechanism of the psychic powers in the development of mysticism, would show in greater detail how everything that happens is utilized toward intro-determination in the process of education. It would be interesting as an example to discover the application of the special senses to introversion and ascertain the fate of the sense qualities. It is quite remarkable what a prominent role tastes and smells often play in de- scriptions given by persons who have followed the path of mysticism. I mention the odor of sanctity and its opposite in the devilish, evil odor. The ex- perimenter in magic Staudenmaier, who will be men- tioned later, has established in his own case the coordination of his partial souls (personifications, autonomous complexes) to definite bodily functions and to definite organs. Certain evil, partial souls, which appear to him in hallucinations as diabolical goat faces, were connected with the function of certain parts of the lower intestine.
Mysticism stimulates a much more powerful sub- limation of impulses than the conventional educa- tion of men. So it is not strange if intro-determina- tion does not accomplish its desires quickly but re- mains fragmentary. In such unfortunate or frag- mentary cases, the inward-determined powers show more than mere traces of their less refined past. The heroes of such miscarried mysticism appear as rather extraordinary saints. So, for instance, Count von Zinzendorf s warm love of the Savior has so much of the sensual flavor, with furthermore such
INTROVERSION 265
decided perversities, that the outpourings of his rapture are positively laughable. Thus the pious man indulges his phantasy with a marked predilec- tion for voluptuousness in the " Seitenholchen " (Wound in the Side) in Jesus' body and with an unmistakable identification of this " cleft " with the vulva.
Examples of the poetical creations of Zinzendorf and his faithful followers are given:
So ever-sideways-squinting
So side-homesickness-feeling ;
So lambs-hearts-grave-through crawling,
So lambs-sweat-trace-smelling.
• ••«....•
So Jesus sweat-drop-yielding, With love's fever trembling Like the child full of spirit. So corpse-air-imbibing, So wound-wet-emitting, So grave-fume-sniffing.
• ••••••••
So martyr-lamb's heart-like, So Jesus-boy-like, So Mary Magdelene-like being, Childlike, virgin-like, conjugal Will the lamb keep us Close to the kiss of his clefts.
*••••••••
With us Cross people
The closet of the side often is worth
The whole little lamb.
Ye poor sinners.
266 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
But deep, but deep within,
Yes deep, right deep within,
And whoever will be blessed
He wishes himself within
Into the dear rendezvous
Of all the darlings.
Ravishing little lamb.
I, poor little thing, I kiss the ring
On thy little ringer,
Thou wound of the spear
Hold thy little mouth near,
It must be kissed.
Lamb, say nothing to me in there
For this precious minute
Thou art mine only."
On this curiosity compare the psychological explana- tions of Pfister. (Frommigkeit G. Ludw. v. Zin- zendorf.)
Returning to the previously mentioned " spiritual powers " I should mention that alchemy also at- tempts to include in a short schema the inventory of powers available for the Great Work. It uses dif- ferent symbols for this purpose ; one of the most fre- quent is the seven metals or planets. Whether I say with the astrologers that the soul (not the celestial spirit, which is derived from God) flowing in from the seven planets upon man, is therefore composed of their seven influences, or if with the alchemists I speak of the seven metals, which come together in the microcosm, it is of course quite the same, but expressed in another closely related symbol. The metals are, as we know, incomplete and have to be
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" improved " or " made complete." That means we must sublimate our impulses.
" From the highest to the lowest everything rises by intermediate steps on the infinite ladder, in such manner that those pictures and images, as outgrowths of the divine mind, through subordinate divinities and demigods impart their gifts and emanations to men. The highest of these are : Spirit of inquiry, power of ruling and mastering self, a brave heart, clearness of perception, ardent affection, acuteness in the art of exposition, and fruitful creative power. The efficient forces of all these God has above all and originally in himself. From him they have received the seven spirits and divinities, which move and rule the seven planets, and are called angels, so that each has received his own, distinct from the rest. They share them again among the seven orders of demons subordinated to them, one under each. And these finally transmit them to men. (Adamah Booz. Sieb. Grunds., p. 9 ff.)
In this enumeration the fundamental powers, whose partition varies exceedingly, already show a certain measure of intro-determination. If we wish to contrast their titanic with their anagogic aspect, we get approximately the following scheme, to which I add the familiar astrological characters of the seven planets.
Destroying (castration). ^> Introversion.
Mastery. U Mastery of oneself.
Love of combat. $ Warring against oneself.
Libido, O Sublimated libido.
270 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
finds there below in the shadows of the unconscious, the equivalent for the world above which it has left, namely the world of phantasy and memories, of which the strongest and most influential are the early infantile memory images. It is the child's world, the paradise of early childhood, from which a rigorous law has separated us. In this subter- ranean realm slumber sweet domestic feelings and the infinite hopes of all " becoming." Yet as Me- phistopheles says, " The peril is great." This depth is seducing: it is the "mother" and — death. If the libido remains suspended in the wonder realm of the inner world the man has become but a shadow for the world above. He is as good as dead or mortally ill; if the libido succeeds however in tearing itself loose again and of pressing on to the world above, then a miracle is revealed; this subterranean journey has become a fountain of youth for it, and from its apparent death there arises a new productiveness. This train of thought is very beautifully contained in an Indian myth: Once on a time Vishnu ab- sorbed in rapture (introversion) bore in this sleep Brahma, who enthroned on a lotus flower, arose from Vishnu's navel and was carrying the Vedas, eagerly reading them. (Birth of creative thought from introversion.) Because of Vishnu's rapture, however, a monstrous flood overcame the world (swallowing up through introversion, symbolizing the danger of entering into the mother of death). A demon profiting by the danger, stole the vedas from Brahma and hid them in the deep. (Swallow-
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ing of the libido.) Brahma wakes Vishnu and he, changing into a fish, dived into the flood, battled with the demon (dragon fight), conquered him and brought the vedas up again. (Prize attained with difficulty.) (Cf. Jung, Psychology of the Uncon- scious.)
The marvel of the invigoration that can be at- tained in the successful issue of introversion is com- parable to the effect that Antaeus felt on touching his mother, the earth. The mother of men, to whom introversion carries us, is the spirit of the race, and from it flows gigantic strength. " This occasional retiring into oneself, which means a return to an infantile relation to the parent images, appears within certain limits to have a favorable effect upon the condition of the individual." Of this mine of power Stekel (Nerv. Angst., p. 375) writes: " When mankind desires to create something big, it must reach down deep into the reservoir of its past."
I wish now to quote a mystic philosopher. J. B. von Helmont (1577-1644) writes: " That magic power of man which is operative outside of him lies, as it were, hidden in the inner life of mankind. It sleeps and rules absolutely without being wakened, yet daily as if in a drunken stupor within us. ... Therefore we should pray to God, who can be hon- ored only in the spirit, that is, in the inmost soul of man. Hence I say the art of the Cabala requires of the soul that magic yet natural power shall, as it were, after sleep has been driven away, be placed in the keeping of the soul. This magic power has
272 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
gone to sleep in us through sin and has to be awak- ened again. This happens either through the illu- mination of the Holy Ghost or a man himself can by the art of the Cabala produce this power of awakening himself at will. Such are called makers of gold [nota bene!] whose leader (rector) is, how- ever, the spirit of God. . . . When God created the soul of man he imparted to it fundamental and primal knowledge. The soul is the mirror of the universe and is related to all Being. It is illumined by an inner light, but the storm of the passions, the multiplicity of sensuous impressions, and other dis- tractions darken this light, whose beams are spread abroad only, if it burns alone and if all in us is in harmony and peace. If we know how to separate ourselves from all external influences and are will- ing to be led by this inner light, we shall find pure and true knowledge in us. In this state of concen- tration the soul distinguishes all objects to which it directs its attention. It can unite with them, pene- trate their nature, and can itself reach God and in him know the most important truths." (Enne- moser, Gesch. d. Mag., pp. 906, 914.)
Staudenmaier, who has experimented on himself magically to a great extent and has set down his experiences recently in the interesting book, " Die Magie als experimentelle Naturwissenschaft," thinks he has observed that through the exercise that he carries on, and which produces an intense introversion, psychophysical energies are set free that make him capable of greater efficiency. Spe-
INTROVERSION 273
cifically, an actual drawing upon the nerve centers unused in the conscious function of the normal man of to-day would be available for intellectual work, etc. So, as it were, a treasure can be gained (by practices having a significant introversion character), a treasure which permits an increased thinking and feeling activity. If Staudenmaier, even in the criti- cal examination of his anomalous functions, can be influenced by them, it would be a great mistake to put them aside simply as " pathological."
Ennemoser says of the danger of introversion (1. c., p. 175) : "Now where in men of impure heart, through the destructive natural powers and evil spiritual relations, the deepest transcendental powers are aroused, dark powers may very easily seize the roots of feeling and reveal moral abysses, which the man fixed in the limits of time hardly sus- pects and from which human nature recoils. Such an illicit ecstasy and evil inspiration is at least recog- nized in the religious teachings of the Jews and Christians, and the seers of God describe it as an agreement with hell (Isaiah xxvm, 15)."
Whence comes the danger? It comes from the powerful attraction for us of that world which is opened to us through introversion. We descend there to whet our arms for fresh battles, but we lay them down; for we feel ourselves embraced by soft caressing arms that invite us to linger, to dream enchanting dreams. This fact coincides in large part with the previously mentioned tendency toward comfort, which is unwilling to forego childhood and
274 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
a mother's careful hands. Introversion is an excel- lent road to lazy phantasying in the regressive di- rection.
Among psychopathologists Jung especially has of late strongly insisted upon the dangerous role of indolence. According to him the libido possesses a monstrous laziness which is unwilling to let go of any object of the past, but would prefer to retain it forever. Laziness is actually a passion, as La Rochefoucauld brilliantly remarks: "Of all the passions the least understood by us is laziness; it is the most indefatigable and the most malign of them all, although its outrages are imperceptible." " It is the perilous passion affecting the primitive man more than all others, which appears behind the sus- picious mask of the incest symbols, from which the fear of incest has driven us away, and which above all is to be vanquished under the guise of the 1 dreaded mother.' [Vide, Note D. To avoid a wrong conception of this quotation it must be noted that laziness is, of course, not to be regarded as the only foundation of incest symbolism.] She is the mother of infinite evils, not the least of them being the neurotic maladies. For especially from the vapor of remaining libido residues, those damaging evils of phantasy develop, which so enshroud reality that adaptation becomes well nigh impossible." (Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious.)
That the indolent shrinking back from the diffi- culties of life is indicated so frequently in psychol- ogy and in mythology by the symbol of the mother
INTROVERSION 275
is not surprising, but I should yet like to offer for a forceful illustration an episode from the war of Cyrus against Astyages which I find recorded in Dulaure-Krauss-Reiskel (Zeugg., p. 85.) After Astyages had aroused his troops, he hurled himself with fiery zeal at the army of the Persians, which was taken unawares and retreated. Their mothers and their wives came to them and begged them to at- tack again. On seeing them irresolute the women unclothed themselves before them, pointed to their bosoms and asked them whether they would flee to the bosoms of their mothers or their wives. This reproachful sight decided them to turn about and they remained victorious.
On the origin of the mythological and psycho- logical symbol of the dreaded mother: " Still there appears to reside in man a deep resentment, because a brutal law once separated him from an impulsive indulgence and from the great beauty of the animal nature so harmonious with itself. This separation is clearly shown in the prohibition of incest and its corollaries (marriage laws). Hence pain and in- dignation are directed toward the mother as if she were to blame for the domestication of the sons of men. In order not to be conscious of his desire for incest (his regressive impulse toward animal nature) the son lays the entire blame on the mother, whence results the image of the ' dreaded mother.' 1 Mother ' becomes a specter of anxiety to him, a nightmare." (Jung, Psychology of the Uncon- scious.)
276 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
The snake is to be regarded as a mythological symbol (frequent also in dream life) for the libido that introverts itself and enters the perilous inter- dicted precinct of the incest wish (or even only the life shirking tendency) ; and especially (though not always valid) is this conception in place, if the snake appears as a terrifying animal (representative of the dreaded mother). So also the dragon is equivalent to the snake, and it can, of course, be replaced by other monsters. The phallic signifi- cance of the snake is, of course, familiar enough; the snake as a poisonous terrible animal indicates, how- ever, a special phallus, a libido burdened with anxiety. Jung, who has copious material with which to treat this symbolism, calls the snake really a " negative phallus," the phallus forbidden with re- spect to the mother, etc. I would recall that al- chemy, too, has the symbol of the snake or the dragon, and used in a way that reenforces the pre- ceding conception. It is there connected with the symbols of introversion and appears as " poisonous." The anxiety serpent is the " guardian of the thresh- old " of the occultists; it is the treasure guarding dragon of the myth. In mystic work the serpent must be overcome; we must settle with the conflict which is the serpent's soul.
Also the mystic yoga manuals of the Hindus know the symbol of the serpent, which the introverting individual has to waken and to overcome, whereupon he comes into possession of valuable powers. These serpents [kundalini] are considered by the Yogi
INTROVERSION 277
mystics as an obstacle existing in the human body that obstructs certain veins or nerves (the anatomy of the Hindu philosophers is rather loose here) , and by this means, if they are freed, the breath of life (prana) sends wondrous powers through the body. The main path in the body which must be freed for the increased life-energies is generally described as the susumna, (As far as I know, it is not yet cleared up whether the aorta abdominalis or the spine has furnished the anatomical basis for the idea of the central canal.) and is the middle way between two other opposed canals of the breath, which are called pingala, the right, and ida, the left. (Here, too, note by the way, appears the comparison of oppo- sites.) I quote now several passages on the kun- dalini and its significance at the beginning of the mystical work.
" As Ananta, the Lord of Serpents, supports this whole universe with its mountains and its forests, so kundalini is the main support of all the yoga prac- tices. When kundalini is sleeping it is aroused by the favor of the guru [spiritual teacher], then all of the lotuses [lotus here stands for nerve center] and granthis [swallowings, nerve plexus?] are pierced. Then prana goes through the royal road, susumna. Then the mind remains suspended and the yogi cheats death. ... So the yogi should care- fully practice the various mudras [exercises] to rouse the great goddess [kundalini] who sleeps closing the mouth of susumna." (Hatha Yoga Prad., Ill, 1-5.) "As one forces open a door
278 PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
[door symbolism] with a key [the " Diederich " of the wanderer in the parable] so the yogi should force open the door of moksa [deliverance] by the kundalini. The Paramesoari [great goddess] sleeps, closing with her mouth the hole through which one should go to the brahmarandhra [the opening or place in the head through which the di- vine spirit, the Brahma or the Atman, gets into the body; the anatomical basis for this naive idea may have been furnished by one of the sutures of the skull, possibly the sutura frontalis; the brahma- randhra is probably the goal of the breath that passes through the susumna that is becoming free.] where there is no pain or misery. The kundalini sleeps above the kanda. [The kanda, for which we can hardly find a corresponding organ, is to be found between the penis and the navel.] It gives mukti to the yogis and bondage to the fools. [See later the results of introspection.] He who knows her, knows yoga. The kundalini is described as being coiled like a serpent. He who causes that sakti [probably, power] to move ... is freed with- out doubt. Between the Ganges and the Yamuna [two rivers of India, which are frequently used sym- bolically, probably for the right and the left stream of the breath of life, ingala and ida, cf. what fol- lows] there sits the young widow [an interesting characterization of the kundalini] inspiring pity. He should despoil her forcibly, for it leads one to the supreme seat of Vishnu. Ida is the sacred Ganges and pingala the Yamuna. Between ida and
INTROVERSION 279
pingala sits the young widow kundalini. You should awake the sleeping serpent [kundalini] by taking hold of its tail. That sakti, leaving off sleep, goes up forcibly." (Hatha-Yoga, Prad., Ill, 105-111.) Ram Prasad ("Nature's Finer Forces," p. 189) writes about the kundalini: " This power sleeps in the developed organism. It is that power which draws in gross matter from the mother organism through the umbilical cord and distributes it to the different places, where the seminal prana gives it form. When the child separates from the mother the power goes to sleep." Here the kundalini sakti appears clearly in connection with the mother. Siva is the god [father image] most peculiar to the yogis. The wife of Siva, however, is called Kundalini.
Mythologically expressed, introversion proceeds well if the hero defeats the dragon. If this does not happen, an unsuccessful issue is the result; the man loses himself. In my opinion this losing of self is possible in two ways, one active, the other passive. In all there would then be three terminations of in- troversion. The good conclusion is the entrance into the true mystical work, briefly, mysticism. The bad conclusions are the active way of magic and the passive one of schizophrenia (introversion psy- chosis). In the first case there is consummated an inner reunion, in the other two cases a losing of self; in magic one loses oneself in passions, for which one wishes to create satisfaction magically, absolving oneself from the laws of nature; in the case of men- tal malady the sinking develops into laziness, a spir-
28o PROBLEMS OF MYSTICISM
itual death. The three paths followed by the intro- verting individual correspond roughly to these three other possibilities of life, work (morality), crime, suicide. These three possibilities are, of course, recognized by the hermetic art; it recognizes three fundamental powers, which can give no other result psychically. Two of these principles are mutually opposed (in the unpurified condition of the mate- rial) . We know them quite well as A and V , etc. The third principle lies evenly between the other two, like the staff of Hermes between the two ser- pents. So the symbol $ , as Hermes' staff with the serpents, precisely unites all three. In this aspect the three qualities or constituents of matter (prakrti) may at once be susbtituted for the three fundamental powers of alchemy according to the Hindu samkbrya doctrine. Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, are translated (by Schroeder) by " purity, passion, darkness."
In the Bghavad-Gita it is said of the happiness that these three grant :
" Where one rests after earnest work and arrives at the end of toil,
Fortune, which appears poison at first, finally is like nectar.
Such a fate is truly good, procured through cheerful- ness of spirit. [Sattva.]
Fortune that first shows like nectar, and finally ap- pears as poison,
Chaining the senses to the world, belongs to the realm of passion. [Rajas.]
INTROVERSION 281
Fortune that immediately and thereafter strikes the
soul with delusion, In sleep, indolence, laziness, such Fortune belongs
to darkness." [Tamas.]
" Passion " and " darkness," Rajas and Tamas, (in alchemy indicated by A and V , also often by $ and 5 ) indicate the wrong way, the peril in intro- version. They lead to what Gorres (Christl. Myst.) describes as the "demoniac" mysticism as opposed to the divine mysticism. All mystic man- uals warn us of the wrong way and emphasize often that we can easily lose the way even where there is good intention. The evil one knows how, by illu- sions, to make the false way deceptively like the right one, so that the righteous man, who is not on his guard, may get unsuspectingly into the worst en- tanglements. Careful examination of himself, exact observation of the effect of the spiritual exercises, is to be laid to heart by every one. Yet powers come into play that have their roots in the deepest darkness of the soul (in the unconscious) and which are withdrawn from superficial view. [After this had been written I read a short paper of Dr. Karl Furtmuller, entitled " Psychoanalyse und Ethik," and find there, p. 5, a passage which I reproduce here on account of its agreement with my position. I must state at the outset that according to Furt- muller, psychoanalysis is peculiarly qualified to arouse suspicion against the banal conscience, which leads self-examination into the realm of the conscious
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only, with neglect of the unconscious impulses, which are quite as important for the performance of ac- tions. The passage of interest to us here reads: " There is no lack of intimation that these fundamen- tal facts which place the whole of life in a new perspective, were recognized or suspected even in earlier times. If early Christianity believed that demons could overpower the heart of man in the sense that they assumed the voice of God, and the man believed that, while really doing the devil's work he was doing the work of God, then that sounds like a symbolic representation of the play of the forces that are described above." The play of these forces was indeed known to cultivated religious peo- ples of all times. As for Christianity, what the au- thor asserts of its beginnings can be accepted as true for a much earlier time. We already know that one of the first works of mysticism consists in the edu- cation of the conscience, in a most subtle purifica- tion of this judicial inner eye. The claims of the psychoanalyst are there fulfilled to the uttermost.] Instead of many examples I gladly quote a single one, but an instructive exposition by Walter Hitton, a great master of the contemplative life, from his " Scala Perfectionis " as Beaumont (Tract, v. Gust, pub. 1721, pp. 1 88 ff.) renders it. Thus he writes: " From what I said we can to some extent perceive that visions and revelations, or any kind of spirit in bodily appearance, or in the imagination in sleep or waking, or any other sensation in the bodily senses that are, as it were, spiritually performed, either
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through a sound in the ears or taste in the mouth or smell in the nose, or any other perceptible heat of fiery quality that warms the breast or any other part of the body, or any other thing that can be- felt by a bodily sense, even if it is not so refreshing and agreeable, all this is not contemplation or observa- tion; but in respect of the spiritual virtues, and those of celestial perception and love towards God, which accompany true contemplation, only evil secondary matters, even if they appear to be laudable and good. All such kinds of sensation may be good if pro- duced by a good angel, but may, however, proceed in a deceptive manner, from the impositions of a bad angel, if he disguises himself as an angel of light. For the devil can imitate in bodily sensations exactly the same things that a good angel can accomplish. Indeed, just as the good angels come with light, so can the devil do also. And just as he can fabricate this in things that appear to the eyes, so he can bring it to pass in the other senses. The man who has perceived both can best say which is good and which is evil. But whoever knows neither or only one, can very easily be deceived."
Externally, in the sense quality, they are all simi- lar, but internally they are very different. And therefore we should not too strongly desire them, nor lightly maintain that the soul can distinguish be- tween the good and evil by the spirit of difference, so that it may not be deceived. As St. John says: " Believe not every spirit, but prove it first whether it be of God or not." And to know whether the
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perception of the bodily sense is good or evil, Hitton gives the following rule:
" If ye see an unusual light or brilliance with your bodily eye, or in imagination, or if ye hear any wonderful supernatural sound with your ears, or if ye perceive a sudden sweet taste in your mouths or feel any warmth in your breasts, like fire, or any form of pleasure in any part of your body, or if ye see a spirit in a bodily form, as if he were an angel to fortify or instruct you, or if any such feeling that you know comes not from you or from a physical creature, then observe yourselves with great care at such a time and consider the emotions of your heart prudently. For if ye become aware by occasion of pleasure or satisfaction derived from such percep- tion, that your hearts are drawn away from the con- templation of Jesus Christ and from spiritual exer- cises: as from prayer, and knowledge of yourselves and your failings, and from the turning in towards virtue and spiritual knowledge and perception of God, with result that your heart and your inclina- tions, your desire and your repose depend chiefly on the above mentioned feeling or sight, in that ye therefore retain them, as if that were a part of the celestial joy or angelic bliss, and therefore your thoughts become such that ye neither pray nor can think of anything else, but must entirely give way to that, in order to keep it and satisfy yourself with it, then this sensation is very much to be suspected of coming from the Enemy; and therefore were it
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ever so wonderful and striking, still renounce it and do not consent to accept it. For this is a snare of the Enemy, to lead the soul astray by such bodily sensation or agreeableness of the senses, and to trap it in order to hurl it into spiritual arrogance and false security, which happens if it flatters itself as if it enjoyed celestial bliss and on account of the pleasure it feels were already half in paradise, while it is still in fact at the gate of hell, and therefore through pride and presumptuousness may have fallen into error, heresy, fanaticism and other bodily or spiritual disaster.
" In case, however, that these things do not result in leading away your heart from spiritual exercises, but cause ye to become ever more devout and more ardent in prayer and more wise to cultivate spiritual thoughts; if ye are at first astonished but neverthe- less your heart turns back and is awakened to greater longing for virtue and your love toward God and your neighbor increases more and more, and makes you ever meeker in your own eyes; then you may infer from this sign that it is of God and comes from the presence and action of a good angel, and comes from the goodness of God, either for comfort to simple pious souls to increase their trust in and long- ing for God, and because of such a strengthening to seek more thoroughly for the knowledge and love of God. Or if they are perfect that perceive such a pleasure, it appears to them somewhat like a fore- taste and shadow of the transfiguration of the body
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which it may expect in the celestial bliss." How- ever, I do not know whether such a man can be found on earth.
" He continues : Of this method of distinguish- ing between the works of the spirits, Saint John (I John IV, 3) speaks in his epistle: * Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God ' (or as it is translated by Luther : ' Who does not recognize that Jesus Christ is come into the flesh'). This union and connection of Jesus with the human soul is caused by a good will and a zealous striving toward him, which alone de- sires to possess him and to view him spiritually in his blessedness. The greater this longing the more closely is Jesus united with the soul, and the less the longing, the more loosely is he bound to him. So every spirit or every sensation that diminishes this longing, and draws it away from the steadfast con- templation of Jesus Christ and from sighing and longing like a child for him, this spirit will release Jesus from the soul, and therefore it is not from God but the activity of the Enemy. But if a spirit or a sensation increases this desire, fastens the bonds of love and devotion closer to Jesus, raises the eyes of the soul to spiritual knowledge more and more, and makes the heart ever meeker, this spirit is from God."
In many of the modern theosophic introversion methods, borrowed from the Hindu yoga doctrines, we find the exhortation to attach no importance to the marvels appearing beside the real prize, indeed
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to regard them as a pernicious by-product. The Hindu doctrine calls them Siddhi. Walter Hitton speaks of them as " inferior subordinate matters." From the description of them it appears that they are phantastic appearances, which partly flatter the wish for power, partly other wishes. [See Note E at the end of this volume.] The Siddhi are quali- fied to captivate weak minds with their jugglery. Erotic experiences are connected very easily with them because, going over into the regressive phase, they show their " titanic " countenances. I have with some daring, but not without right, just cited the Siddhi as the anagogic equivalent of auto- erotism. The regressive phase, however, appears as soon as one indulges in the gratification of the Siddhi. It is not the Siddhi themselves that are the evil (I regard them indeed as anagogic), but the losing of oneself in them. They can be both di- vine and diabolic. That depends on one's attitude towards them.
In the result of introversion, the diabolic mysti- cism is opposed, as we saw, to the divine. The true mysticism is characterized by the extension of per- sonality and the false by the shrinking of personality. We can also say, by an extension or shrinking of the sphere of interest that determines the socially valu- able attitude. I say advisedly " sphere of interest," for mysticism in the end will not merely fulfill the social law without love, but it labors for the bring- ing out of this very love. It is not satisfied with superficially tincturing the substance into gold (i.e.,
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among other meanings, to get man to do good ex- ternally) ; but it would change the substance com- pletely, make it gold through and through (i.e., to orient the entire impulse power of man for good, so that he desires this good with the warmth of love and therefore finds his good fortune in virtue). Only the good and not the good fortune is chosen as the leading star, as I must note in order to avoid a misconception about the hermetic procedure. Happiness arises only at a certain point, and seems to me like a fruit ripened in the meantime. The most subtle representatives of this doctrine among the alchemists are not so far, after all, from the Kantian ethics.
Alchemistic ethics presupposes that there is an education, an ennobling of the will. The person that wills can learn to encompass infinitely much in his ego. [Cf. Furtmuller (Psychoanalyse und Ethik, p. 15): "The individual can . . . make the commands of others his own." He quotes Goethe (Die Geheimnisse) :
From the law which binds all being The man is freed who masters himself.
The poles of shrinking and extension are the fol- lowing: The magician and the pathological intro- versionist contract the sphere of their interest upon the narrowest egoism. The mystic expands it im- mensely, in that he comprises the whole world in himself. The person egotistically entering into in- troversion can preserve his happiness only by a firm
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self-enclosure before the ever threatening destruc- tion; the mystic is free. The mystic's fortune con- sists in the union of his will with the world will or as another formula expresses it, in the union with God. [On the freeing effect of the merging of one's own will into a stronger cf. my essays Jb. ps. F., Ill, pp. 637. ff., and IV, p. 629.] This fortune is therefore also imperishable (gold). The reader must always bear in mind that the mystic never works on anything but on the problem of mankind in general; only he does so in a form of intensive life, and it may indeed be the case that the powers which introversion furnish him, actually make possi- ble a more dynamic activity and a greater result. For my part I am strongly inclined to believe it.
On the extension of personality, some passages from the Discourses on Divinity in the Bhagavad- Gita:
" Who sees himself in all being and all being in himself,
Whoever exercises himself in devotion and looks at all im- partially,
Whoever sees me everywhere, and also sees everything in me,
From him I can never vanish nor he from me." VI, 2gi.
" Whoever discovers in all the modes of life the very ex- alted lord,
WTio does not fail when they fail — he who recognizes that, has learned well,
For whosoever recognizes the same lord as the one who dwells in all,
Wounds not the self through the self, and travels so the highest road." XIII 271.
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These passages elucidate the progressive function of the idea of God in the " work." Incidentally, I believe that the devotional doctrines (Yoga) which are theoretically based on the Samkhya philosophy that originated without a God, has for good prac- tical reasons taken the idea of isvara (God) into its system. Concentration requires an elevated impal- pable object as an aim. And this object must have the property of being above every reach of the power to grasp and yet apparently to seem attain- able. God has furthermore the functions of the bearer of conflicts and hopes. At the beginning of the work indeed the obstructing conflicts still exist. A certain unburdening is accomplished by leaving the conflict to the divinity, and frees the powers that were at first crippled under the pressure of the con- flicts. [Cf. Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious, Freud Kl. Schr., II, p. 131.]
" Then throw on me all thy doings, thinking only on the highest spirit,
Hoping and desiring nothing, so fight, free from all pain." Bh. G. Ill 30.
" Whose acts without any bias and dedicates all his activity to God
iWill not be stained with evil [is therefore free from con- flicts] as the lotus leaf is not stained by the water." Vio.
The idea of the education of the will has, of course, been familiar for a long time to ethical writers, even if it has at times been lost sight of.
Aristotle is convinced that morality arises from
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custom and convention. " As we learn swimming only in water, and music by practice on an instru- ment, so we become righteous by righteous action and moderate and courageous by appropriate acts. From uniform actions enduring habits are formed, and without a rational activity no one becomes good . . . being good is an act. Good is never by na- ture; we become good by a behavior corresponding to a norm. We possess morality not by nature but against nature. We have the disposition to attain it ... we must completely win it by habit. As Plato says, in agreement with this, the proper edu- cation consists in being so led from youth upward, as to be glad and sorry about the things over which we should be glad and sorry. But if by a course of action in accordance with custom, a definite direc- tion of the will has been secured, then pleasure and pain are added to the actions that result from the will and, as it were, as signs, that here a new nature is established in man." (Jodl. Gesch. d. Eth., I, pp. 44 ff.) " The energy and the proud confidence in human power with which Aristotle offers to man his will and character formation as his own work, the emphasis with which he has opposed to the quietis- tic " velle non discitur " (we cannot educate volition nor learn to will, as later pessimistic opinions have expressed it axiomatically) with the real indispensa- bility and at the same time the possibility of the formation of the will; this contention is admirable and quite characteristic of the methods of thought of ancient philosophy at its height." (Jodl., 1. c.,
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p. 49.) [Velle non discitur has been popularized by Schopenhauer.]
In Philo and the related philosophers there ap- pears quite clearly the thought that gained such wide acceptance later among the Christian ascetics, that the highest development of moral strength was at- tainable only through a long continued and gradually increasing exercise, an ethical gymnastics. Philo, moreover, uses the word Askesis to describe what elsewhere had been described as bodily exercise. The occidental spiritual exercise corresponds to the Hindu yoga.
In the domestication of man through countless generations, social instincts must have been estab- lished, which appear as moral dispositions. I recall the moral feeling in Shaftesbury. The social life of man, for instance, plays with Adam Smith a sig- nificant role, and yet even with him the moral law is not something ready from the very beginning, not an innate imperative, but the peculiar product of each individual. The development of conscience re- ceives an interesting treatment by Smith. There takes place in us a natural transposition of feelings, mediated through sympathy, which arouse in each of us the qualities of the other, and we can say " that morality in Smith's sense, just as Feuerbach taught later, is only reflected self-interest, although Smith himself was quite unwilling to look at sympathy as an egotistic principle. By means of a process that we can almost call a kind of self-deception of the imagination, we must look at ourselves with the eyes
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of. others, a very sensible precaution of nature, which thus has created a balance for impulses that otherwise must have operated detrimentally. [Bear in mind what I have said above about intro-determi- nation.] This transposition which sympathy effects we cannot escape; it itself appears when we know that we are protected from the criticism of another by the complete privacy of our own doings. It alone can keep us upright when all about us misunder- stand us and judge us falsely. For the actual judg- ments of another about us form, so to speak, a first court whose findings are continually being corrected by that completely unpartisan and well informed wit- ness who grows up with us and reacts on all our doings." (Jodl., 1. c., I, pp. 372 ff.)
The derivation of the moral from selfish impulses by transposition does not resolve ethics into egoism, as Helvetius would have us believe. It is " a cari- cature of the true state of things to speak of self- interest, when we have in mind magnanimity and beneficence, and to maintain that beneficence is noth- ing but disguised selfishness, because it produces joy or brings honor to the person that practices it." (L. c., p. 444.)
The ethical evolution which takes place as an ex- tension of personality demands, the more actively it is practiced, the removal of resistances which operate against the expansion of the ego. It cannot be de- nied that hostile tendencies, which are linked with pusillanimous views, are always on hand and create conflicts. If they were not, the moral task would
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be an easy one. Now as man cannot serve two mas- ters, so in the personal psychical household, the points of view which have been dethroned, as far as they will not unite with the newly acquired ones, must be killed, and ousted from their power. Most of all must this process be made effective if the de- velopment is taken up intensively in the shape of introversion. It must appear also in the symbolism. Already in the lecanomantic experiments we are struck by the dying of the figure (old man) that rep- resents the old form of conscience that has been over- come. It is that part of Lea's psyche that resists the new, after the manner of old people (father type). In order that the new may be suppressed, it must be immolated; at every step in his evolution man must give up something; not without sacrifice, not without renunciation, is the better attained. The sacrifice must come, of course, before the new reformed life begins. The hermetic representations, do not indeed always follow chronological order, yet the sacrifice is usually placed at the beginning, as introversion. In the parable the wanderer kills the lion, well at the beginning. He sacrifices something in so doing. He kills himself, i.e., a part of himself, in order to be able to rise renewed (regenerated). This process is the first mystical death, also called by the alchemists, putrefaction or the blacks. This death is often fused with the symbol of introversion, because both can appear under the symbol of the entrance into the mother or earth. Only by closer
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examination can it sometimes be seen which process is chiefly intended.
" And that shalt thou know my son, whoso does not know how to kill, and to bring about a rebirth, to make the spirits revive, to purify, to make bright and clear ... he as yet knows nothing and will ac- complish nothing." (Siebengestirn, p. 21.)
" These are the two serpents sent by Juno (which is the metallic nature) which the strong Hercules (i.e., the wise man in his cradle) has to strangle, i.e., to overpower and kill, in order in the beginning of his work to have them rot, be destroyed and to bear." (Flamel, p. 54.)
Again and again the masters declare that one can- not attain to true progress except by means of the blacks, death and putrefaction.
In the " Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Flud- danae," of the year 1633, we read: " Know then that it is the duty of spiritual alchemy to mortify and to refine all obscuring prejudice as corruptible and vain, and so break down the tents of darkness and ignorance, so that that imperishable but still be- clouded spirit may be free and grow and multiply in us through the help of the fiery spirit, full of grace, which God so kindly moistened, so as to increase it from a grain to a mountain. That is the true al- chemy of which I am speaking, that which can multi- ply in me that rectangular stone, which is the corner- stone of my life and my soul, so that the dead in me shall be awakened anew, and arise from the old
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nature that had become corrupted in Adam, as a new man who is new and living in Christ, and there- fore in that rectangular stone. . . ."
To the " sacrifice " of the person introverting, Jung devotes an entire chapter in his Psychology of the Unconscious, Chapt. IV. A brief resume of it would show that by the sacrifice is meant the giving up of the mother, i.e., the disclaiming of all bonds and limitations that the soul has carried over from childhood into adulthood. The victory over the dragon is equivalent to the sacrificing of the regres- sive (incestuous) tendency. After we have sought the mother through introversion we must escape from her, enriched by the treasure which we have gotten.
The sacrifice of a part of ourself (killing of the dragon, the father, etc.) is, as Jung points out, rep- resented also -in mythology by the shooting with sharp arrows at the symbol of the libido. The sym- bol of the libido is generally a sun symbol. Now it is particularly noteworthy that the VIII key of the alchemist Basilius Valentinus (see figure 3, p. 199) shows arrows being shot, which are aimed at the O (this libido symbol par excellence) that is aptly used as a " target." Death is clearly enough accentuated and correlated with the sinking of the corns of wheat into the earth. [John XII, 24, 25, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his
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life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.] As this rises, so also will the dying mystic rise. The grave crosses have the form A ( + ) ; they show that the interred one is a certain sulphur, the impure sul- phur, willfulness. The birds, from which we are to protect the grain, may in the end be the Siddhi; they are, in the introversion form of the religious work, what would otherwise be merely " diversions " or " dissipations."
The mystical death is the death of egoism (in Hindu terminology ahamkara). Jacob Boehme writes in his book of the true antonement, I, 19: ". . . Although I am not worthy, [Jesus] take me yet in thy death and let me only in thy death die my death; still strike thou me in my ancknowledged sel- fishness to the ground and kill my selfishness by thy death. . . ." In the Mysterium Magnum, XXXVI, 74, 75 : "... We exalt not the outspoken word of the wisdom of God, but only the animal will to selfishness and egoism which is departed from God, which honors itself as a false God of its own and may not believe or trust God (as the Antichrist who has placed himself in God's stead) ; and we teach on the contrary that the man of the Antichrist's image shall wholly die so that he may be born in Christ of a new life and will, which new will has power in the perfect word of nature with divine eyes to see all the miracles of God, both in nature and creature, in the perfect wisdom. For as dies the Antichrist in the soul, so rises Christ from the dead."
In the hermetic book, " Gloria Mundi," it is re-
t
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lated of Adam that he would have been able, if he had not acted contrary to God, to live 2000 years in paradise and would then have been taken up into heaven; but he had drawn on himself death, sickness and calamity. Only through the grace of God was he given a partial knowledge of the powers of things, of herbs and remedies against manifold in- firmities. " When, however, he could no longer maintain himself by the medicinal art [in paradise] he sent his son Seth forth to paradise for the tree of life, which he received, not physically, but spir- itually. Finally he desired the oil of compassion, whereupon by the angels, at God's command to give the oil, the promise was given and thereupon the seed of the oil tree sent, which seed Seth planted on his return, after his father's death and on his father's grave, from which grew the wood of the holy cross, on which our Lord Jesus Christ, through his passion and death, freed us from death and all sins; which Lord Christ in his holiest humanity has become the tree and the wood of life and has brought to us the fruit of the oil of compassion. . . ." Adam is the undomesticated man; this ideal must die to the moral aspirant.
The painful duty of killing a part of self is beau- tifully expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, where the hero, Aryuna, hesitates to fight against his " kin- dred," to shoot at them — the bow falls from his hand.
Dying relates to the old realms. The old laws expire to make room for the new. The new life
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cancels the old deeds. (Cf. Paul, Rom. VH-VIII.) Vedanta doctrine: But as to the duty of the scripture canon and perception, both last as long as Samsara, i.e., until the awakening. If this is at- tained, perception is annulled, and if you derive thence the objection that thereby the veda is an- nulled, it must be noted that according to our own doctrine father is not father and the Veda is not the veda. (Deussen, Syst. d. Ved., p. 449.)
Bhagavad-Gita, IV, 37: " Like fire when it flames and turns all the firewood
to ashes." So the fire of knowledge burns for you all deeds
to ashes
For several reasons the father image is peculiarly suited to represent what has to be resolved. By the father, the old Adam (totality of inherited instincts) and the strongest imperatives are implanted in the child. The father is also the type of tenacious ad- herence to the ancestors. Again we meet the an- tithesis, old generation, new generation, in ourselves after the intro-determination.
The mystical death (sacrifice) is not to be accom- plished by mere asceticism, as it were, mechanically; the alchemists warn us carefully against severe reme- dies. The work is to take a natural course; the work is also, although indeed a consummation of nature, yet not above nature.
" Nature rejoices in nature Nature overcomes nature Nature rules nature."
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Thus the magician Osthanes is said to have taught. And the Bhagavad-Gita (VI, 5-7) says:
" Let one raise himself by means of self, and not abase self,
Self is his own friend, is also his own enemy.
To him is his self his own friend, who through self conquers self,
Yet if it battle with the external world, then self be- comes enemy to self."
In the " Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae Flud- danae " (p. 57) we read: " So it is impossible to rise to the supramundane life, in so far as it does not happen by means of nature. From the steps of na- ture Jacob's ladder is reached and the chain to Jupi- ter's throne begins on earth."
The idea of self-sacrifice (with dismemberment) appears very prettily in an allegorical vision of the old hermetic philosopher Zosimos, who seems to have copied it, as Reitzenstein notes, from an Egyp- tian Nekyia. I quote from Hoefer (Hist. Chim., I, pp. 256-259) :
" I slept and saw a priest standing before an altar shaped like a cup and with several steps by which to climb to it. [First 15, later 7 steps are mentioned.] And I heard a voice crying aloud, ' I have finished climbing and descending these 15 steps, resplendent with light.' After listening to the priest officiating at the altar I asked him what this resounding voice was whose sound had struck my ear. The priest answered me, saying: ' I am he who is («/w 6 o»v),
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the priest of the sanctuary, and I am under the weight of the power that overwhelms me. For at the break of day came a deputy who seized me, killed me with a sword, cut me in pieces; and after flaying the skin from my head, he mixed the bones with the flesh and burned me in the fire to teach me that the spirit is born with the body. That is the power that overwhelms me.' While the priest was saying that, his eyes became as blood, and he vomited all his flesh. I saw him mutilate himself, rend himself with his teeth and fall on the ground. Seized with terror I awoke, and I began to ponder and ask myself if this indeed was the nature and the composition of the water. And I congratulated myself upon having reasoned well [namely in a train of thought preced- ing the vision]. Soon I slept again and perceived the same altar, and on this altar I saw water boiling with a noise and many men in it. Not finding any one in the neighborhood to explain this phenomenon, I advanced to enjoy the spectacle at the altar. Then I noticed a man with gray hair and thin, who said to me, * What are you looking at ? ' 'I am look- ing,' I answered with surprise, ' at the boiling of the water and the men who are boiling there still alive.' ' The sight you see,' replied he, ' is the beginning, the end and the transmutation (/Aera/JoA^).' I asked him what the transmutation was. ' It is,' he said, 1 the place of the operation which is called purifica- tion [in the original, topos askeseos], for the people who wish to become virtuous come there and become spirits shunning the body.' And I asked him, * Are
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you also a spirit [pneuma] ? ' 'I am,' said he, * a spirit and the guardian of spirits.' During this con- versation and amid the noise of the boiling water and the cries of the people, I perceived a man of brass, holding in his hand a book of lead, and I heard him tell me in a loud voice : * See, I command all those who are subjected to punishments to learn from this book. I command every one to take the book of lead and to write in it with his hand until his pharynx is developed, the mouth is opened, and the eyes have taken their place again.' The act followed the word, and the master of the house, present at this ceremony, said to me, ' Stretch your neck and see what is done.' 4 1 see,' said I. * The brazen man that you see,' said he, ' and who has left his own flesh, is the priest before the altar. It is he who has been given the privilege of disposing of this water.' In going over all this in my imagina- tion I awoke and said to myself, ' What is the cause of this occurrence? What indeed is it? Is it not the water white, yellow, boiling, divine ? ' I found that I had reasoned well. . . . Finally, to be brief, build, my friend a temple of a single stone [monolith] ... a temple that has neither begin- ning nor end, and in the interior of which there is found a spring of purest water, and bright as the sun. It is with the sword in hand that one must search and penetrate into it, for the entrance is nar- row. It is guarded by a dragon, which has to be killed and flayed. By putting the flesh and the bones together you make a pedestal up which you will
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climb to reach the temple, where you will find what you are looking for. For the priest, who is the brazen man whom you saw sitting near the spring, changes his nature and is transformed into a man of silver, who can, if you wish, change himself into a man of gold. . . . Do not reveal anything of this to any one else and keep these things for yourself, for silence teaches virtue. It is very fine to under- stand the transmutation of the four metals, lead, copper, tin, silver, and to know how they change into perfect gold. . . ."
Psychoanalysis, like comparative mythology, makes it probable that the killing or dismemberment of the father figure is equivalent to castration. That has, according to intro-determination, an anagogic, a wider sense, if we compare the organ of generation to the creative power, and a narrower, if we compare it to sexuality. The wider conception does not require immediate interpretation. With regard to the nar- rower, I observe that the mystical manuals show that the most active power for spiritual education is the sexual libido, which for that reason is partially or entirely withdrawn from its original use. (Rules of chastity.) "Vigor is obtained on the confirma- tion of continence." (Patanjali, Yoga-Sutra, II, 38.) These instruction books have recognized the great transmutability of the sexual libido. (Cf. ability of sublimation in the alchemistic, as well as in the Freudian terminology.) Naturally the reduc- tion of sexuality had to occur at the beginning of the work in order to furnish that power; hence the
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castration at the commencement of the process. The killing of the phallic snake amounts, of course, to the same thing. The snake with its tail in its mouth is the cycle of the libido, the always rolling wheel of life, of procreation, which always procre- ates itself, and of the creation of the world. The same cycle is represented by a god who holds his phallus in his mouth, and so (in accordance with infantile and primitive theory) constantly impreg- nates himself. The serpent is good and also evil. Whoever breaks through the ring frees himself from the wheel of compulsion, raises himself above good and evil, in order to put in its place later a mystical union [Hieros Gamos].
Regarded from the point of view of knowledge, the formation of types reveals itself as a symbolic presentiment of an anagogic idea, not at first clearly conceivable. For the spirit, what cannot yet be clearly seen (mythological level of knowledge) or can no longer be seen (going to sleep, etc.) is pic- tured in symbolic form. [More details will be found in my essays, " Phantasie und Mythos," " Ueber die Symbolbildung," and " Zur Symbolbild- ung " ( Jb. ps. F., II, III, IV) .] This symbol form is the form of knowledge adapted to the spirit's ca- pacity as it then existed. Not that any mysterious presentiment or prophetic gift of vision must be as- sumed. The circumstance that man can get ever deeper meaning from his symbols gives them the appearance of being celestial harbingers sent forth by the latest ideas that they express. In a certain
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sense, however, the last meaning is implicated in the first appearance of the typical symbol. It has al- ready been explained by intro-determination how that was possible. The psyche, whose inventory of powers is copied symbolically in the elementary types, knows, even if only darkly at first, the possible unfolding of the powers. These unfoldings are originally not actual but potential. [See Note F.] The more then that the psyche is so developed, that what was originally only a possible presenti- ment of actuality and that hence tends to come nearer the merely potential, begins to become actual, the more symbolism has the value of a " program." According to Jung, Riklin, etc., the phantasy (dream, myth-making) can be conceived not only as with Freud, " as a wish fulfillment, wherein older and infantile material expresses the wish for something unsettled, unattained or suppressed, but also as a mythological first step in the direction of conscious and adapted thinking and acting, as a program. . . . Maeder has discussed the teleological func- tions of the dream and the unconscious. In the course of an analytic treatment we discover the con- tinuous transformations of the libido symbol in the dream current, till a form is reached which serves as an attempt to adapt oneself to actuality. There are epochs in the history of civilization which are particularly characterized by a storing of the libido in the sense that from the reservoir of mytho- logical and religious thought forms, new adaptations to the real processes and data are made. A signifi-
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cant example is the Renaissance, which a study of renaissance literature and a visit to the renaissance cities, e.g., Florence, make evident in a high degree. The analysis of romanticism . . . confirms these processes of development." (Zentralblatt f. Psa.,
HI, p. 114.)
We have here the thought that the " program " is expressed in art, which therefore has prescience in a certain degree of the coming event. Jung (Jb. ps. F., Ill, pp. 171 ff.) writes: " It is a daily ex- perience in my professional work (an experience whose certainty I must express with all the caution that is required by the complexity of the material) that in certain cases of chronic neuroses, a dream occurs at the time of the onset of the malady or a long time before, frequently of visionary significance, which is indelibly imprinted on the memory and holds a meaning, concealed from the patient, which anticipates the succeeding experiences, i.e., the psy- chological signficance. Dreams appear to stay spon- taneously in memory so long as they suitably outline the psychological situation of the individual."
The more the program is worked out the more the value of the symbolism (whose types can always remain the same in spite of changes in their appear- ance) changes into that of the functional symbolism in the narrower sense; for the functional symbolism in the restricted sense is that which copies the actual play of forces in the psyche.
To the functional symbolism of actual forces be- long, e.g., in large part the faces in my lecanomantio
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experiments, although they also contain program material; further, in purest form, the previously related autosymbollc vision of the mountains. The progress of a psychoanalytic treatment is, apart from the program connections, generally copied in the dream in correspondence to the momentary psychic status, and therefore actually and function- ally. It is quite probable that the progress of the mystical work is represented to the mystic in his phantasying (dreams, visions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. But when one happens upon written phantasy products of the mystics, of course only he who has mystical experiences of his own can venture to say whether a program symbolism or an actually functional symbolism is exhibited. For example, I make no judgment on the degree of actuality in the anagogic symbolism of the parable.