Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of ThoughtJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Philosophy
Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Libido (Psychology); Mother and child; Psychoanalysis; Subconsciousness; Symbolism (Psychology)
I’ll praise thee ere we separate: I see
Thou knowest the devil thoroughly:
Here take this key.
_Faust_:
That little thing!
_Mephistopheles_:
Take hold of it, not undervaluing!
_Faust_:
It glows, it shines, increases in my hand!
_Mephistopheles_:
How much it is worth, thou soon shalt understand,
The key will scent the true place from all others!
Follow it down!—’twill lead thee to the Mothers![211]
Here the devil again puts into Faust’s hand the marvellous tool, a
phallic symbol of the libido, as once before in the beginning the devil,
in the form of the black dog, accompanied Faust, when he introduced
himself with the words:
“Part of that power, not understood,
Which always wills the bad and always creates the good.”
United to this strength, Faust succeeded in accomplishing his real life
task, at first through evil adventure and then for the benefit of
humanity, for without the evil there is no creative power. Here in the
mysterious mother scene, where the poet unveils the last mystery of the
creative power to the initiated, Faust has need of the phallic magic
wand (in the magic strength of which he has at first no confidence), in
order to perform the greatest of wonders, namely, the creation of Paris
and Helen. With that Faust attains the divine power of working miracles,
and, indeed, only by means of this small, insignificant instrument. This
paradoxical impression seems to be very ancient, for even the Upanishads
could say the following of the dwarf god:
(19) “Without hands, without feet, He moveth, He graspeth: Eyeless He
seeth, (and) earless He heareth: He knoweth what is to be known, yet
is there no knower of Him. Him call the first, mighty the Man.
(20) “Smaller than small, (yet) greater than great in the heart of
this creature the self doth repose ... etc.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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