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PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS: A STUDY OF THE TRANSFORMATIONS AND SYMBOLISMS OF THE LIBIDO |
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Chapter 4: The Song of the Moth The double role of Faust: creator and destroyer -- "I came not to send peace, but a sword" -- The modern problem of choice between Scylla of world-renunciation and Charybdis of world-acceptance --The ethical pose of The Hymn of Creation having failed, the unconscious projects a new attempt in the Moth-Song -- The choice, as in Faust -- The longing for the sun (or God) the same as that for the ship's officer -- Not the object, however: the longing is important -- God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors -- The failure to replace by a real compensation the libido-object which is surrendered, produces regression to an earlier and discarded object -- A return to the infantile -- The use of the parent image -- It becomes synonymous with God, Sun, Fire -- Sun and snake -- Symbols of the libido gathered into the sun-symbol -- The tendency toward unity and toward multiplicity -- One God with many attributes: or many gods that are attributes of one -- Phallus and sun -- The sun-hero, the well-beloved -- Christ as sun-god -- "Moth and sun" then brings us to historic depths of the soul -- The sun-hero creative and destructive -- Hence: Moth and Flame: burning one's wings -- The destructiveness of being fruitful -- Wherefore the neurotic withdraws from the conflict, committing a sort of self-murder -- Comparison with Byron's Heaven and Earth. A LITTLE later Miss Miller travelled from Geneva to Paris. She says:
At four o'clock in the morning she noticed a moth that flew against the light in her compartment. She then tried to go to sleep again. Suddenly the following poem took possession of her mind.
Before we go into the material which Miss Miller offers us for the understanding of the poem, we will again cast a glance over the psychologic situation in which the poem originated. Some months or weeks appear to have elapsed since the last direct manifestation of the unconscious that Miss Miller reported to us; about this period we have had no information. We learn nothing about the moods and phantasies of this time. If one might draw a conclusion from this silence it would be presumably that in the time which elapsed between the two poems, really nothing of importance had happened, and that, therefore, this poem is again but a voiced fragment of the unconscious working of the complex stretching out over months and years. It is highly probable that it is concerned with the same complex as before. [1] The earlier product, a hymn of creation full of hope, has, however, but little similarity to the present poem. The poem lying before us has a truly hopeless, melancholy character; moth and sun, two things which never meet. One must in fairness ask, is a moth really expected to rise to the sun? We know indeed the proverbial saying about the moth that flew into the light and singed its wings, but not the legend of the moth that strove towards the sun. Plainly, here, two things are connected in her thoughts that do not belong together; first, the moth which fluttered around the light so long that it burnt itself; and then, the idea of a small ephemeral being, something like the day fly, which, in lamentable contrast to the eternity of the stars, longs for an imperishable daylight. This idea reminds one of Faust:
Not long afterwards, Faust sees "the black dog roving there through cornfields and stubble," the dog who is the same as the devil, the tempter, in whose hellish fires Faust has singed his wings. When he believed that he was expressing his great longing for the beauty of the sun and the earth, "he went astray thereover" and fell into the hands of "the Evil One."
This is what Faust had said shortly before, in true recognition of the state of affairs. The honoring of the beauty of nature led the Christian of the Middle Ages to pagan thoughts which lay in an antagonistic relation to his conscious religion, just as once Mithracism was in threatening competition with Christianity, for Satan often disguises himself as an angel of light. [2] The longing of Faust became his ruin. The longing for the Beyond had brought as a consequence a loathing for life, and he stood on the brink of self-destruction. [3] The longing for the beauty of this world led him anew to ruin, into doubt and pain, even to Marguerite's tragic death. His mistake was that he followed after both worlds with no check to the driving force of his libido, like a man of violent passion. Faust portrays once more the folk-psychologic conflict of the beginning of the Christian era, but what is noteworthy, in a reversed order.
Against what fearful powers of seduction Christ had to defend himself by means of his hope of the absolute world beyond, may be seen in the example of Alypius in Augustine. If any of us had been living in that period of antiquity, he would have seen clearly that that culture must inevitably collapse because humanity revolted against it. It is well known that even before the spread of Christianity a remarkable expectation of redemption had taken possession of mankind. The following eclogue of Virgil might well be a result of this mood:
The turning to asceticism resulting from the general expansion of Christianity brought about a new misfortune to many: monasticism and the life of the anchorite. [6] Faust takes the reverse course; for him the ascetic ideal means death. He struggles for freedom and wins life, at the same time giving himself over to the Evil One; but through this he becomes the bringer of death to her whom he loves most, Marguerite. He tears himself away from pain and sacrifices his life in unceasing useful work, through which he saves many lives. [7] His double mission as saviour and destroyer has already been hinted in a preliminary manner:
A parallel to this double role is that text in the Gospel of Matthew which has become historically significant:
Just this constitutes the deep significance of Goethe's Faust, that he clothes in words a problem of modern man which has been turning in restless slumber since the Renaissance, just as was done by the drama of Oedipus for the Hellenic sphere of culture. What is to be the way out between the Scylla of renunciation of the world and the Charybdis of the acceptance of the world? The hopeful tone, voiced in the "Hymn to the God of Creation," cannot continue very long with our author. The pose simply promises, but does not fulfil. The old longing will come again, for it is a peculiarity of all complexes worked over merely in the unconscious [8] that they lose nothing of their original amount of affect. Meanwhile, their outward manifestations can change almost endlessly. One might therefore consider the first poem as an unconscious longing to solve the conflict through positive religiousness, somewhat in the same manner as they of the earlier centuries decided their conscious conflicts by opposing to them the religious standpoint. This wish does not succeed. Now with the second poem there follows a second attempt which turns out in a decidedly more material way; its thought is unequivocal. Only once "having gained one raptured glance . . ." and then to die. From the realms of the religious world, the attention, just as in Faust, [9] turns towards the sun of this world, and already there is something mingled with it which has another sense, that is to say, the moth which fluttered so long around the light that it burnt its wings. We now pass to that which Miss Miller offers for the better understanding of the poem. She says:
The deep impression made by the poem upon the author shows that she put into it a large amount of love. In the expression "aspiration passionnee" we meet the passionate longing of the moth for the star, of man for God, and indeed, the moth is Miss Miller herself. Her last observation that the word "moth" was often impressed upon her shows how often she had noticed the word "moth" as applicable to herself. Her longing for God resembles the longing of the moth for the "star." The reader will recall that this expression has already had a place in the earlier material, "when the morning stars sang together," that is to say, the ship's officer who sings on deck in the night watch. The passionate longing for God is the same as that longing for the singing morning stars. It was pointed out at great length in the foregoing chapter that this analogy is to be expected: "Sic parvis componere magna solebam." It is shameful or exalted just as one chooses, that the divine longing of humanity, which is really the first thing to make it human, should be brought into connection with an erotic phantasy. Such a comparison jars upon the finer feelings. Therefore, one is inclined in spite of the undeniable facts to dispute the connection. An Italian steersman with brown hair and black moustache, and the loftiest, clearest conception of humanity! These two things cannot be brought together; against this not only our religious feelings revolt, but our taste also rebels. It would certainly be unjust to make a comparison of the two objects as concrete things since they are so heterogeneous. One loves a Beethoven sonata but one loves caviar also. It would not occur to any one to liken the sonata to caviar. It is a common error for one to judge the longing according to the quality of the object. The appetite of the gourmand which is only satisfied with goose liver and quail is no more distinguished than the appetite of the laboring man for corned beef and cabbage. The longing is the same; the object changes. Nature is beautiful only by virtue of the longing and love given her by man. The aesthetic attributes emanating from that has influence primarily on the libido, which alone constitutes the beauty of nature. The dream recognizes this well when it depicts a strong and beautiful feeling by means of a representation of a beautiful landscape. Whenever one moves in the territory of the erotic it becomes altogether clear how little the object and how much the love means. The "sexual object" is as a rule overrated far too much and that only on account of the extreme degree to which libido is devoted to the object. Apparently Miss Miller had but little left over for the officer, which is humanly very intelligible. But in spite of that a deep and lasting effect emanates from this connection which places divinity on a par with the erotic object. The moods which apparently are produced by these objects do not, however, spring from them, but are manifestations of her strong love. When Miss Miller praises either God or the sun she means her love, that deepest and strongest impulse of the human and animal being. The reader will recall that in the preceding chapter the following chain of synonyms was adduced: the singer -- God of sound -- singing morning star -- creator -- God of Light -- sun -- fire -- God of Love. At that time we had placed sun and fire in parentheses.
Now they are entitled to their right place in the chain of synonyms. With the changing of the erotic impression from the affirmative to the negative the symbols of light occur as the paramount object. In the second poem where the longing is clearly exposed it is by no means the terrestrial sun. Since the longing has been turned away from the real
object, its object has become, first of all, a subjective one, namely, God. Psychologically, however, God is the name of a representation-complex which is grouped around a strong feeling (the sum of libido). Properly,
the feeling is what gives character and reality to the complex.
[10] The attributes and symbols of the divinity must belong in a consistent manner to the feeling (longing, love,
libido, and so on). If one honors God, the sun or the fire, then one honors one's own vital force, the libido.
It is as Seneca says: "God is near you, he is with you, in you."
God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors. [11] If it were not known how
tremendously significant religion was, and is, this marvellous play with one's self would appear absurd. There must be something more than this, however, because, notwithstanding its absurdity, it is, in a certain sense, conformable to the purpose in the highest degree.
To bear a God within one's self signifies a great deal; it is a
guarantee of happiness, of power, indeed even of omnipotence, as far as these attributes belong to the Deity. To bear a God within one's self signifies just as much as to be God one's self. In Christianity, where, it is true, the grossly sensual representations and symbols are weeded out as carefully
as possible, which seems to be a continuation of the poverty of symbols of the Jewish cult, there are to be found plain traces of this psychology. There are even plainer traces, to be sure, in the "becoming-one with God" in those mysteries closely related to the Christian, where the mystic himself is lifted up to divine adoration through
initiatory rites. At the close of the consecration into the
Isis mysteries the mystic was crowned with the palm crown, [12] he was placed on a pedestal and worshipped as Helios.
[13] In the magic papyrus of the Mithraic liturgy published by Dieterich there is the
The mystic in religious ecstasies put himself on a plane with the stars, just as a saint of the Middle Ages put himself by means of the stigmata on a level with Christ. St. Francis of Assisi expressed this in a truly pagan manner, [14] even as far as a close relationship with the brother sun and the sister moon. These representations of "becoming-one with God" are very ancient. The old belief removed the becoming-one with God until the time after death; the mysteries, however, suggest this as taking place already in this world. A very old text brings most beautifully before one this unity with God; it is the song of triumph of the ascending soul. [15]
The identification with God necessarily has as a result the enhancing of the meaning and power of the individual. [18] That seems, first of all, to have been really its purpose: a strengthening of the individual against his all too great weakness and insecurity in real life. This great megalomania thus has a genuinely pitiable background. The strengthening of the consciousness of power is, however, only an external result of the "becoming-one with God." Of much more significance are the deeper-lying disturbances in the realm of feeling. Whoever introverts libido -- that is to say, whoever takes it away from a real object without putting in its place a real compensation -- is overtaken by the inevitable results of introversion. The libido, which is turned inward into the subject, awakens again from among the sleeping remembrances one which contains the path upon which earlier the libido once had come to the real object. At the very first and in foremost position it was father and mother who were the objects of the childish love. They are unequalled and imperishable. Not many difficulties are needed in an adult's life to cause those memories to reawaken and to become effectual. In religion the regressive reanimation of the father-and-mother image is organized into a system. The benefits of religion are the benefits of parental hands; its protection and its peace are the results of parental care upon the child; its mystic feelings are the unconscious memories of the tender emotions of the first childhood, just as the hymn expresses it:
The visible father of the world is, however, the sun, the heavenly fire; therefore, Father, God, Sun, Fire are mythologically synonymous. The well-known fact that in the sun's strength the great generative power of nature honored shows plainly, very plainly, to any one to whom as yet it may not be clear that in the Deity man honors his own libido, and naturally in the form of the image or symbol of the present object of transference. This symbol faces us in an especially marked manner in the third Logos of the Dieterich papyrus. After the second prayer [20] stars come from the disc of the sun to the mystic, "five-pointed, in quantities, filling the whole air. If the sun's disc has expanded, you will see an immeasurable circle, and fiery gates which are shut off." The mystic utters the following prayer:
The invocation is, as one sees, almost inexhaustible in light and fire attributes, and can be likened in its extravagance only to the synonymous attributes of love of the mystic of the Middle Ages. Among the innumerable texts which might be used as an illustration of this, I select a passage from the writings of Mechtild von Magdeburg (1212-1277):
The religious regression makes use indeed of the parent image without, however, consciously making it an object of transference, for the incest horror [22] forbids that. It remains rather as a synonym, for example, of the father or of God, or of the more or less personified symbol of the sun and fire. [23] Sun and fire that is to say, the fructifying strength and heat -- are attributes of the libido. In Mysticism the inwardly perceived, divine vision is often merely sun or light, and is very little, or not at all, personified. In the Mithraic liturgy there is found, for example, a significant quotation:
Hildegarde von Bingen (1100-1178) expresses herself in the following manner: [24]
Symeon, the New Theologian (970-1040), says the following:
That that thing, perceived as inner light, as the sun of the other world, is longing, is clearly shown by Symeon's words: [26]
In Nietzsche's "Glory and Eternity" we meet with an essentially similar symbol:
It is not astonishing if Nietzsche's great inner loneliness calls again into existence certain forms of thought which the mystic ecstasy of the old cults has elevated to ritual representation. In the visions of the Mithraic liturgy we have to deal with many similar representations which we can now understand without difficulty as the ecstatic symbol of the libido:
Silence is commanded, then the vision of light is revealed. The similarity of the mystic's condition and Nietzsche's poetical vision is surprising. Nietzsche says "constellation." It is well known that constellations are chiefly therio- or anthropomorphic symbols. The papyrus says,
Here libido becomes fire, flame and snake. The Egyptian symbol of the "living disc of the sun," the disc with the two entwining snakes, contains the combination of both the libido analogies. The disc of the sun with its fructifying warmth is analogous to the fructifying warmth of love. The comparison of the libido with sun and fire is in reality analogous. There is also a "causative" element in it, for sun and fire as beneficent powers are objects of human love; for example, the sun-hero Mithra is called the "well-beloved." In Nietzsche's poem the comparison is also a causative one, but this time in a reversed sense. The comparison with the snake is unequivocally phallic, corresponding completely with the tendency in antiquity, which was to see in the symbol of the phallus the quintessence of life and fruitfulness. The phallus is the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker of miracles, and as such it received reverence everywhere. We have, therefore, three designating symbols of the libido: First, the comparison by analogy, as sun and fire. Second, the comparisons based on causative relations, as A: Object comparison. The libido is designated by its object, for example, the beneficent sun. B: The subject comparison, in which the libido is designated by its place of origin or by analogies of this, for example, by phallus or (analogous) snake. To these two fundamental forms of comparison still a third is added, in which the "tertium comparationis" is the activity; for example, the libido is dangerous when fecundating like the bull -- through the power of its passion -- like the lion, like the raging boar when in heat, like the ever-rutting ass, and so on. This activity comparison can belong equally well to the category of the analogous or to the category of the causative comparisons. The possibilities of comparison mean just as many possibilities for symbolic expression, and from this basis all the infinitely varied symbols, so far as they are libido images, may properly be reduced to a very simple root, that is, just to libido and its fixed primitive qualities. This psychologic reduction and simplification is in accordance with the historic efforts of civilization to unify and simplify, to syncretize, the endless number of the gods. We come across this desire as far back as the old Egyptians, where the unlimited polytheism as exemplified in the numerous demons of places finally necessitated simplification. All the various local gods, Amon of Thebes, Horus of Edfu, Horus of the East, Chnum of Elephantine, Atum of Heliopolis, and others, [29] became identified with the sun God Re. In the hymns to the sun the composite being Amon-Re-Harmachis-Atum was invoked as "the only god which truly lives." [30] Amenhotep IV (XVIII dynasty) went the furthest in this direction. He replaced all former gods by the "living great disc of the sun," the official title reading:
"And, indeed," Erman adds, [31] "the sun, as a God, should not be honored, but the sun itself as a planet which imparts through its rays [32] the infinite life which is in it to all living creatures." Amenhotep IV by his reform completed a work which is psychologically important. He united all the bull, [33] ram, [34] crocodile [35] and pile-dwelling [36] gods into the disc of the sun, and made it clear that their various attributes were compatible with the sun's attributes. [37] A similar fate overtook the Hellenic and Roman polytheism through the syncretistic efforts of later centuries. The beautiful prayer of Lucius [38] to the queen of the Heavens furnishes an important proof of this:
This attempt to gather again into a few units the religious thoughts which were divided into countless variations and personified in individual gods according to their polytheistic distribution and separation makes clear the fact that already at an earlier time analogies had formally arisen. Herodotus is rich in just such references, not to mention the systems of the Hellenic-Roman world. Opposed to the endeavor to form a unity there stands a still stronger endeavor to create again and again a multiplicity, so that even in the so-called severe monotheistic religions, as Christianity, for example, the polytheistic tendency is irrepressible. The Deity is divided into three parts at least, to which is added the feminine Deity of Mary and the numerous company of the lesser gods, the angels and saints, respectively. These two tendencies are in constant warfare. There is only one God with countless attributes, or else there are many gods who are then simply known differently, according to locality, and personify sometimes this, sometimes that attribute of the fundamental thought, an example of which we have seen above in the Egyptian gods. With this we turn once more to Nietzsche's poem,
"The Beacon." We found the flame there used as an image of the libido, theriomorphically represented as a snake (also as an image of the soul: [40] "This flame is mine own soul").
We saw that the snake is to be taken as a phallic image of the libido (upreared in impatience), and that this image, also an attribute of the conception of the sun (the Egyptian sun idol), is an image of the libido in the combination of sun and phallus. It is not
a wholly strange conception, therefore, that the sun's disc is represented with a penis, as well as with hands and feet. We find proof for this idea in a peculiar part of the Mithraic
liturgy:
This extremely important vision of a tube hanging down from the sun would produce in a religious text, such as that of the Mithraic liturgy, a strange and at the same time meaningless effect if it did not have the phallic meaning. The tube is the place of origin of the wind. The phallic meaning seems very faint in this idea, but one must remember that the wind, as well as the sun, is a fructifier and creator. This has already been pointed out in a footnote. [41] There is a picture by a Germanic painter of the Middle Ages of the "conceptio immaculata" which deserves mention here. The conception is represented by a tube or pipe coming down from heaven and passing beneath the skirt of Mary. Into this flies the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove for the impregnation of the Mother of God. [42] Honegger discovered the following hallucination in an insane man (paranoid dement): The patient sees in the sun an "upright tail" similar to an erected penis. When he moves his head back and forth, then, too, the sun's penis sways back and forth in a like manner, and out of that the wind arises. This strange hallucination remained unintelligible to us for a long time until I became acquainted with the Mithraic liturgy and its visions. This hallucination threw an illuminating light, as it appears to me, upon a very obscure place in the text which immediately follows the passage previously cited:
Mead translates this very clearly: [43]
In the original
The various attributes of the sun, separated into a series, appear one after the other in the Mithraic liturgy. According to the vision of Helios, seven maidens appear with the heads of snakes, and seven gods with the heads of black bulls. It is easy to understand the maiden as a symbol of the
libido used in the sense of causative comparison. The snake in Paradise is usually considered as feminine, as the seductive principle in woman, and is represented as feminine by the old artists, although properly the snake has a phallic meaning. Through a similar change of meaning the snake in antiquity becomes the symbol of the earth,
which on its side is always considered feminine. The bull is the well-known, symbol for the fruitfulness of the sun. The bull gods in the Mithraic liturgy were called
Of Mithra it is said:
If we place fire and gold as essentially similar, then a great accord is found in the attributes of the two gods. To these mystical pagan ideas there deserve to be added the probably almost contemporaneous vision of Revelation:
One need not assume that there is a direct dependency
between the Apocalypse and the Mithraic liturgy. The visionary images of both texts are developed from a
source, not limited to one place, but found in the soul of many divers people, because the symbols which arise from it are too typical for it to belong to one individual only. I put these images here to show how the primitive
symbolism of light gradually developed, with the increasing depth of the vision, into the idea of the sun-hero, the "well-beloved." [51] The development of the symbol of light is thoroughly typical. In addition to this, perhaps I might call to mind the fact that I have previously pointed out this course with numerous examples,
[52] and, therefore, I can spare myself the trouble of returning to
this subject. [53] These visionary occurrences are the psychological roots of the sun-coronations in the mysteries. Its rite is religious hallucination congealed into liturgical form, which, on
account of its great regularity, could become a generally accepted outer form.
After all this, it is easily understood how the ancient Christian Church, on
one side, stood in an especial bond to Christ as "sol novus," and, on the other side, had a certain difficulty in freeing itself from the earthly symbols of Christ. Indeed Philo of Alexandria saw in the sun the image of the divine logos or of the Deity especially ("De Somniis," i: 85). In an Ambrosian hymn Christ is invoked by "O sol salutis," and so on. At the time of
Marcus Aurelius, Meliton, in his work, [54]
Still more important is a passage from Pseudo-Cyprian: [55]
In a work nominally attributed to John Chrysostomus, "De Solstitiis et Aequinoctiis," [57] occurs this passage:
According to the testimony of Eusebius of Alexandria, the Christians also shared in the worship of the rising sun, which lasted into the fifth century:
Augustine preached emphatically to the Christians:
Art has preserved much of the remnants of sun-worship, [58] thus the nimbus around the head of Christ and the halo of the saints in general. The Christian legends also attribute many fire and light symbols to the saints. [59] The twelve apostles, for example, are likened to the twelve signs of the zodiac, and are represented, therefore, with a star over the head. [60] It is not to be wondered at that the heathen, as Tertullian avows, considered the sun as the Christian God.
Among the Manichaeans God was really the sun. One of the most remarkable works extant, where the Pagan, Asiatic, Hellenic and Christian intermingle, is the
Under the symbol of "moth and sun" we have dug down into the historic depths of the soul, and in doing this we have uncovered an old buried idol, the youthful, beautiful, fire-encircled and halo-crowned sun-hero, who, forever unattainable to the mortal, wanders upon the earth, causing night to follow day; winter, summer; death, life; and who returns again in rejuvenated splendor and gives light to new generations. The longing of the dreamer concealed behind the moth stands for him. The ancient pre-Asiatic civilizations were acquainted with a sun-worship having the idea of a God dying and rising again (Osiris, Tammuz, Attis-Adonis), [64] Christ, Mithra and his bull, [65] Phoenix and so on. The beneficent power as well as the destroying power was worshipped in fire. The forces of nature always have two sides, as we have already seen in the God of Job. This reciprocal bond brings us back once more to Miss Miller's poem. Her reminiscences support our previous supposition, that the symbol of moth and sun is a condensation of two ideas, about one of which we have just spoken; the other is the moth and the flame. As the title of a play, about the contents of which the author tells us absolutely nothing, "Moth and Flame" may easily have the well-known erotic meaning of flying around the flame of passion until one's wings are burned. The passionate longing, that is to say, the libido, has its two sides; it is power which beautifies everything, and which under other circumstances destroys everything. It often appears as if one could not accurately understand in what the destroying quality of the creative power consists. A woman who gives herself up to passion, particularly under the present-day condition of culture, experiences the destructive side only too soon. One has only to imagine one's self a little away from the every-day moral conditions in order to understand what feelings of extreme insecurity overwhelm the individual who gives himself unconditionally over to Fate.
To be fruitful means, indeed, to destroy one's self, because with the rise of the succeeding generation the previous one has passed beyond its highest point; thus our descendants are our most dangerous enemies, whom we cannot overcome, for they will outlive us, and, therefore, without fail, will take the power from our enfeebled hands. The anxiety in the face of the erotic fate is wholly understandable, for there is something immeasurable therein. Fate usually hides unknown dangers, and the perpetual hesitation of the neurotic to venture upon life is easily explained by his desire to be allowed to stand still, so as not to take part in the dangerous battle of life. [66] Whoever renounces the chance to experience must stifle in himself the wish for it, and, therefore, commits a sort of self-murder. From this the death phantasies which readily accompany the renunciation of the erotic wish are made clear. In the poem Miss Miller has voiced these phantasies. She adds further to the material with the following:
This reminiscence with which the series of ideas is closed confirms the death phantasies which follow from renunciation of the erotic wish. The quotation comes which Miss Miller did not mention from an uncompleted poem of Byron's called "Heaven and Earth." [67] The whole verse follows:
The words are included in a kind of praise or prayer, spoken by a "mortal" who is in hopeless flight before the mounting deluge. Miss Miller puts herself in the same situation in her quotation; that is to say, she readily lets it be seen that her feeling is similar to the despondency of the unhappy ones who find themselves hard pressed by the threatening mounting waters of the deluge. With this the writer allows us a deep look into the dark abyss of her longing for the sun-hero. We see that her longing is in vain; she is a mortal, only for a short time borne upwards into the light by means of the highest longing, and then sinking to death, or, much more, urged upwards by the fear of death, like the people before the deluge, and in spite of the desperate conflict, irretrievably given over to destruction. This is a mood which recalls vividly the closing scene in "Cyrano de Bergerac": [68]
We already know sufficiently well what longing and what impulse it is that attempts to clear a way for itself to the light, but that it may be realized quite clearly and irrevocably, it is shown plainly in the quotation "No, let me die," which confirms and completes all earlier remarks. The divine, the "much-beloved," who is honored in the image of the sun, is also the goal of the longing of our poet. Byron's "Heaven and Earth" is a mystery founded on the following passage from Genesis, chapter vi:2: "And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all that they chose." Byron offers as a further motif for his poem the following passage from Coleridge: "And woman wailing for her Demon lover." Byron's poem is concerned with two great events, one psychologic and one telluric; the passion which throws down all barriers; and all the terrors of the unchained powers of nature: a parallel which has already been introduced into our earlier discussion. The angels Samiasa and Azaziel burn with sinful love for the beautiful daughters of Cain, Anah and Aholibama, and force a way through the barrier which is placed between mortal and immortal. They revolt as Lucifer once did against God, and the archangel Raphael raises his voice warningly:
The power of God is threatened by the seduction of passion; a second fall of angels menaces heaven. Let us translate this mythologic projection back into the psychologic, from whence it originated. Then it would read: the power of the good and reasonable ruling the world wisely is threatened by the chaotic primitive power of passion; therefore passion must be exterminated; that is to say, projected into mythology. The race of Cain and the whole sinful world must be destroyed from the roots by the deluge. It is the inevitable result of that sinful passion which has broken through all barriers. Its counterpart is the sea and the waters of the deep and the floods of rain, [69] the generating, fructifying and "maternal waters," as the Indian mythology refers to them. Now they leave their natural bounds and surge over the mountain tops, engulfing all living things; for passion destroys itself. The libido is God and Devil. With the destruction of the sinfulness of the libido an essential portion of the libido would be destroyed. Through the loss of the Devil, God himself suffered a considerable loss, somewhat like an amputation upon the body of the Divinity. The mysterious hint in Raphael's lament concerning the two rebels, Samiasa and Azaziel, suggests this.
Love raises man, not only above himself, but also above the bounds of his mortality and earthliness, up to divinity itself, and in the very act of raising him it destroys him. Mythologically, this self-presumption finds its striking expression in the building of the heaven-high tower of Babel, which brings confusion to mankind. [70] In Byron's poem it is the sinful ambition of the race of Cain, for love of which it makes even the stars subservient and leads away the sons of God themselves. If, indeed, longing for the highest things -- if I may speak so -- is legitimate, then it lies in the circumstances that it leaves its human boundaries, that of sinfulness, and, therefore, destruction. The longing of the moth for the star is not absolutely pure and transparent, but glows in sultry mist, for man continues to be man. Through the excess of his longing he draws down the divine into the corruption of his passion; [71] therefore, he seems to raise himself to the Divine; but with that his humanity is destroyed. Thus the love of Anah and Aholibama for their angels becomes the ruin of gods and men. The invocation with which Cain's daughters implore their angels is psychologically an exact parallel to Miss Miller's poem.
The apparition of both angels which follows the invocation is, as always, a shining vision of light.
At the sight of this many-colored vision of light, where both women are entirely filled with desire and expectation, Anah makes use of a simile full of presentiment, which suddenly allows us to look down once more into the dismal dark depths, out of which for a moment the terrible animal nature of the mild god of light emerges.
Thus like the leviathan! We recall this overpowering weight in the scale of God's justice in regard to the man Job. There, where the deep sources of the ocean are, the leviathan lives; from there the all-destroying flood ascends, the all-engulfing flood of animal passion. That stifling, compressing feeling [81] of the onward-surging impulse is projected mythologically as a flood which, rising up and over all, destroys all that exists, in order to allow a new and better creation to come forth from this destruction.
The prophetic visions of Japhet have almost prophetic meaning for our poetess; with the death of the moth in the light, evil is once more laid aside; the complex has once again, even if in a censored form, expressed itself. With that, however, the problem is not solved; all sorrow and every longing begins again from the beginning, but there is "Promise in the Air" -- the premonition of the Redeemer, of the "Well-beloved," of the Sun-hero, who again mounts to the height of the sun and again descends to the coldness of the winter, who is the light of hope from race to race, the image of the libido. _______________ Notes: i. "The last age of Cumean prophecy has come already!
Under thy guidance, if any traces of our guilt continue,
ii. Sacred word. iii. I am a star wandering about with you, and flaming up from the depths. iv. Hear me, grant me my prayer Binding together the fiery bolts of heaven with spirit, two-bodied fiery sky, creator of humanity, fire-breathing, fiery-spirited, spiritual being rejoicing in fire, beauty of humanity, ruler of humanity of fiery body, light-giver to men, fire-scattering, fire-agitated, life of humanity, fire-whirled, mover of men who confounds with thunder, famed among men, increasing the human race, enlightening humanity, conqueror of stars. v. The path of the visible Gods will appear through the sun, the God my father. vi. Translated by Dr. T. G. Wrench. vii. After you have said the second prayer, when silence is twice commanded; then whistle twice and snap twice, [28] and straightway you will see many five-pointed stars coming down from the sun and filling the whole lower air. But say once again Silence! Silence! and you, Neophyte, will see the Circle and fiery doors cut off from the opening disc of the sun. viii. Five-fingered stars. ix. "Ecce Homo," translated by A. M. Ludovici. x. In like manner the so-called tube, the origin of the ministering wind, will become visible. For it will appear to you as a tube hanging down from the sun. xi. "You will see the god youthful, graceful, with glowing locks, in a white garment and a scarlet cloak, with a fiery helmet." xii. "You will see a god very powerful, with a shining countenance, young, with golden hair, clothed in white vestments, with a golden crown, holding in his right hand a bullock's golden shoulder, that is, the bear constellation, which wandering hourly up and down, moves and turns the heavens: then out of his eyes you will see lightning spring forth and from his body, stars." xiii. Helios, the rising sun -- the only sun rising from heaven! xiv. "O, how remarkable a providence that Christ should be born on the same day on which the sun moves onward, V. Kal. of April the fourth holiday, and for this reason the prophet Malachi spoke to the people concerning Christ: 'Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, this is the sun of righteousness in whose wings healing shall be displayed.'" xv. Moreover the Lord is born in the month of December in the winter on the 8th Kal. of January when the ripe olives are gathered, so that the oil, that is the chrism, may be produced, moreover they call it the birthday of the Unconquered One. Who in any case is as unconquered as our Lord, who conquered death itself? Or why should they call it the birthday of the sun; he himself is the sun of righteousness, concerning whom Malachi, the prophet, spoke: 'The Lord is the author of light and of darkness, he is the judge spoken of by the prophet as the Sun of righteousness.'" xvi. "Ah! woe to the worshippers of the sun and the moon and the stars. For I know many worshippers and prayer sayers to the sun. For now at the rising of the sun, they worship and say, 'Have mercy on us,' and not only the sun-gnostics and the heretics do this, but also Christians who leave their faith and mix with the heretics." xvii. "To Zeus, the Great Sun God, the King, the Saviour." _______________ 1. At the point in his visualization where the big penis starts waving back and forth and producing wind, I realized that Jung was F*CKING WITH US. Perhaps also PISSING ON US. Look at this visualization, this so-called "myth." It's perverted, disgusting and insulting! He is obviously making it up to phallicize the Zeitgeist, his "hidden" message being that whether an idea's time has come depends on who has the biggest dick. Which shows how much respect he actually has for myth. It's simply a way to entrap us, make us sacralize a good f*cking.
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