Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/54

IV.—THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO 191

The cause of introversion—The forward and backward
flow of the libido—The abnormal third—The conflict rooted
in the incest problem—The "terrible mother"—Miss Miller's
introversion—An internal conflict—Its product of hypnagogic
vision and poem—The uniformity of the unconscious in
all men—The unconscious the object of a true psychology—The
individual tendency with its production of the hero
cult—The love for the hero or god a love for the unconscious—A
turning back to the mother of humanity—Such
regressions act favorably within limits—Miss Miller's mention
of the Sphinx—Theriomorphic representations of the
libido—Their tendency to represent father and mother—The
Sphinx represents the fear of the mother—Miss
Miller's mention of the Aztec—Analysis of this figure—The
significance of the hand symbolically—The Aztec a substitute
for the Sphinx—The name Chi-wan-to-pel—The connection
of the anal region with veneration—Chiwantopel and
Ahasver, the Wandering Jew—The parallel with Chidher—Heroes
generating themselves through their own mothers—Analogy
with the Sun—Setting and rising sun: Mithra and
Helios, Christ and Peter, Dhulqarnein and Chidher—The
fish symbol—The two Dadophores: the two thieves—The
mortal and immortal parts of man—The Trinity taken from
phallic symbolism—Comparison of libido with phallus—Analysis
of libido symbolism always leads back to the
mother incest—The hero myth the myth of our own suffering
unconscious—Faust.


V.—SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH 233

The crowd as symbol of mystery—The city as symbol of
the mother—The motive of continuous "union"—The
typical journey of the sun-hero—Examples—A longing for
rebirth through the mother—The compulsion to symbolize
the mother as City, Sea, Source, etc.—The city as terrible
mother and as holy mother—The relation of the water-motive
to rebirth—Of the tree-motive—Tree of life a
mother-image—The bisexual character of trees—Such symbols
to be understood psychologically, not anatomically—The
incestuous desire aims at becoming a child again,
not at incest—It evades incest by creating myths of symbolic
rebirth—The libido spiritualized through this use of symbols—To
be born of the spirit—This compulsion toward
symbolism brings a release of forces bound up in incest—This
process in Christianity—Christianity with its repression
of the manifest sexual the negative of the ancient
sexual cult—The unconscious transformation of the incest
wish into religious exercise does not meet the modern need—A
conscious method necessary, involving moral autonomy—Replacing
belief by understanding—The history of the
symbolism of trees—The rise of the idea of the terrible
mother a mask of the incest wish—The myth of Osiris—Related
examples—The motive of "devouring"—The Cross of