Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/521

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of a charm of fertility. In the neuroses, the sexual meaning of castigation plays an important part, for among many children castigation may elicit a sexual orgasm. The ritual act of striking has the same significance of generating (fructifying), and is, indeed, merely a variant of the original phallic ceremonial. Of similar character to the bull's shoulder is the cloven hoof of the devil, to which a sexual meaning also appertains. The ass's jawbone wielded by Samson has the same worth. In the Polynesian Maui myth the jawbone, the weapon of the hero, is derived from the man-eating woman, Muri-*ranga-whenua, whose body swells up enormously from lusting for human flesh (Frobenius). Hercules' club is made from the wood of the maternal olive tree. Faust's key also "knows the mothers." The libido springs from the mother, and with this weapon alone can man overcome death.

It corresponds to the phallic nature of the ass's jawbone, that at the place where Samson threw it God caused a spring to gush forth[12] (springs from the horse's tread, footsteps, horse's hoof). To this relation of meanings belongs the magic wand, the sceptre in general. [Greek: Skê~tron] belongs to [Greek: ska~pos], [Greek: skêpa/nôn], [Greek: skê/pôn] = staff; [Greek: skêpto/s] = storm-wind; Latin scapus = shaft, stock, scapula, shoulder; Old High German Scaft = spear, lance.[13] We meet once more in this compilation those connections which are already well known to us: Sun-phallus as tube of the winds, lance and shoulder-blade.

The passage from Asia through Patmos to the Chris-