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)
“In truth, he (Âtman)[310] was as large as a woman and a man, when
they embrace each other. This, his own self, he divided into two
parts, out of which husband and wife were formed.[311] With her, he
copulated; from this humanity sprang. She, however, pondered: ‘How may
he unite with me after he has created me from himself? Now I shall
hide!’ Then she became a cow; he, however, became a bull and mated
with her. From that sprang the horned cattle. Then she became a mare;
he, however, became a stallion; she became a she-ass; he, an ass, and
mated with her. From these sprang the whole-hoofed animals. She became
a goat; he became a buck; she became an ewe; he became a ram, and
mated with her. Thus were created goats and sheep. Thus it happened
that all that mates, even down to the ants, he created—then he
perceived: ‘Truly I myself am Creation, for I have created the whole
world!’ Thereupon he rubbed his hands (held before the mouth) so that
he brought forth fire from his mouth, as from the mother womb, and
from his hands.”
We meet here a peculiar myth of creation which requires a psychologic
interpretation. In the beginning the libido was undifferentiated and
bisexual;[312] this was followed by differentiation into a male and a
female component. From then on man knows what he is. Now follows a gap
in the coherence of the thought where belongs that very resistance which
we have postulated above for the explanation of the urge for
sublimation. Next follows the onanistic act of rubbing or boring (here
finger-sucking) transferred from the sexual zone, from which proceeds
the production of fire.[313] The libido here leaves its characteristic
manifestation as sexual function and regresses to the presexual stage,
where, in conformity with the above explanation, it occupies one of the
preliminary stages of sexuality, thereby producing, in the view
expressed in the Upanishad, the first human art, and from there, as
suggested by Kuhn’s idea of the root “manth,” perhaps the higher
intellectual activity in general. This course of development is not
strange to the psychiatrist, for it is a well-known psychopathological
fact that onanism and excessive activity of phantasy are very closely
related. (The sexualizing-autonomizing of the mind through
autoerotism[314] is so familiar a fact that examples of that are
superfluous.) The course of the libido, as we may conclude from these
studies, originally proceeded in a similar manner as in the child, only
in a reversed sequence. The sexual act was pushed out of its proper zone
and was transferred into the analogous mouth zone[315]—the mouth
receiving the significance of the female genitals; the hand and the
fingers, respectively, receiving the phallic meaning.[316] In this
manner the regressively reoccupied activity of the presexual stage is
invested with the sexual significance, which, indeed, it already
possessed, in part, before, but in a wholly different sense. Certain
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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