CHAPTER IV
Footnote 107:
Complexes are apt to be of the greatest stability, although their outward forms of manifestation change kaleidoscopically. A large number of experimental studies have entirely convinced me of this fact.
Footnote 108:
Julian the Apostate made the last, unsuccessful attempt to cause the triumph of Mithracism over Christianity.
Footnote 109:
This solution of the libido problem was brought about in a similar manner by the flight from the world during the first Christian century. (The cities of the Anchorites in the deserts of the Orient.) People mortified themselves in order to become spiritual and thus escape the extreme brutality of the decadent Roman civilization. Asceticism is forced sublimation, and is always to be found where the animal impulses are still so strong that they must be violently exterminated. The masked self-murder of the ascetic needs no further biologic proof.
Chamberlain (“Foundations of the Nineteenth Century”) sees in the problem a biologic suicide because of the enormous amount of illegitimacy among Mediterranean peoples at that time. I believe that illegitimacy tends rather to mediocrity and to living for pleasure. It appears after all that there were, at that time, fine and noble people who, disgusted with the frightful chaos of that period which was merely an expression of the disruption of the individual, put an end to their lives, and thus caused the death of the old civilization with its endless wickedness.
Footnote 110:
“The last age of Cumean prophecy has come already! Over again the great series of the ages commences: Now too returns the Virgin, return the Saturnian kingdoms; Now at length a new progeny is sent down from high Heaven. Only, chaste Lucina, to the boy at his birth be propitious, In whose time first the age of iron shall discontinue, And in the whole world a golden age arise: now rules thy Apollo.
“Under thy guidance, if any traces of our guilt continue, Rendered harmless, they shall set the earth free from fear forever, He shall partake of the life of the gods, and he shall see Heroes mingled with gods, and he too shall be seen by them. And he shall rule a peaceful world with his father’s virtues.”
Footnote 111:
Δίκη (Justice), daughter of Zeus and Themis, who, after the Golden Age, forsook the degenerate earth.
Footnote 112:
Thanks to this eclogue, Virgil later attained the honor of being a semi-Christian poet. To this he owes his position as guide to Dante.
Footnote 113:
Both are represented not only as Christian, but also as Pagan. Essener and Therapeuten were quasi orders of the Anchorites living in the desert. Probably, as, for instance, may be learned from Apuleius (“Metamorphoses,” lib. XI), there existed small settlements of mystics or consecrated ones around the sacred shrines of Isis and Mithra. Sexual abstinence and celibacy were also known.
Footnote 114:
“Below the hills, a marshy plain Infects what I so long have been retrieving: This stagnant pool likewise to drain Were now my latest and my best achieving. To many millions following let me furnish soil.”
The analogy of this expression with the quotation above is striking.
Footnote 115:
Compare Breuer and Freud: “Studien über Hysterie”; also Bleuler: “Die Psychoanalyse Freuds,” _Jahrbuch_, 1910, Vol. II, 2nd half.
Footnote 116:
Faust (in suicide monologue):
“Out on the open ocean speeds my dreaming! The glassy flood before my feet is gleaming! A new day beckons to a newer shore!
A fiery chariot, borne on buoyant pinions, Sweeps near me now; I soon shall ready be To pierce the ether’s high, unknown dominions, To reach new spheres of pure activity! This godlike rapture, this supreme existence Do I, but now a worm, deserve to track? Yes, resolute to reach some brighter distance; On Earth’s fair sun I turn my back!
· · · · ·
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil, Upon its tract to follow, follow soaring! Then would I see eternal Evening gild The silent world beneath me glowing.
· · · · ·
And now before mine eyes expands the ocean, With all its bays in shining sleep!
· · · · ·
The new-born impulse fires my mind, I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking.”
We see it is the same longing and the same sun.
Footnote 117:
Compare Jung: “Diagnost. Assoc. Stud.”; also “The Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” Chs. II and III.
Footnote 118:
According to the Christian conception _God is Love_.
Footnote 119:
Apuleius (“Met.,” lib. XI, 257): “At manu dextera gerebam flammis adultam facem: et caput decora corona cinxerat palmae candidae foliis in modum radiorum prosistentibus. Sic ad instar solis exornato et in vicem simulacri constituto” (Then in my right hand I carried a burning torch; while a graceful chaplet encircled my head, the shining leaves of the palm tree projecting from it like rays of light. Thus arrayed like the sun, and placed so as to resemble a statue).
Footnote 120:
The parallel in the Christian mysteries is the crowning with the crown of thorns, the exhibition and mocking of the Savior.
Footnote 121:
Sacred word.
Footnote 122:
I am a star wandering about with you, and flaming up from the depths.
Footnote 123:
In the same way the Sassanian Kings called themselves “Brothers of the Sun and of the Moon.” In Egypt the soul of every ruler was a reduplication of the Sun Horus, an incarnation of the sun.
Footnote 124:
“The rising at day out of the Underworld.” Erman: “Aegypten,” p. 409.
Footnote 125:
Compare the coronation above. Feather, a symbol of power. Feather crown, a crown of rays, halo. Crowning, as such, is an identification with the sun. For example, the spiked crown upon the Roman coins made its appearance at the time when the Cæsars were identified with _Sol invictus_ (“Solis invicti comes”). The halo is the same, that is to say, an image of the sun, just as is the tonsure. The priests of Isis had smooth-shaven heads like stars. (See Apuleius, “Metamorphoses.”)
Footnote 126:
Compare with this my statements in “Über die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen.” Deuticke, Wien.
Footnote 127:
In the text of the so-called Mithra Liturgy are these lines: “Εγώ εἴμι σύμπλανος ὑμῖν ἀστὴρ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ βάθους ἀναλάμπων—ταῦτά σον εἰπόντος εὐθέως ὁ δίσκος ἁπλωθήσεται” (I am a star wandering about with you and flaming up from the depths. When thou hast said this, immediately the disc of the sun will unfold). The mystic through his prayers implored the divine power to cause the disc of the sun to expand. In the same way Rostand’s “Chantecler” causes the sun to rise by his crowing.
“For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew xvii: 20).
Footnote 128:
Compare especially the words of the Gospel of John: “I and my Father are one” (John x: 30). “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John xiv: 9). “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John xiv: 11). “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father” (John xvi: 28). “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John xx: 17).
Footnote 129:
See the footnote on p. 137 of text.
Footnote 130:
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.
Footnote 131:
Two-bodied: an obscure epithet, if one does not admit that the dual life of the redeemed, taught in the mysteries of that time, was attributed to God, that is to say, to the libido. Compare the Pauline conception of the σῶμα σαρκικόν and πνευματικόν (carnal and spiritual body). In the Mithraic worship, Mithra seems to be the divine spirit, while Helios is the material god; to a certain extent the visible lieutenant of the divinity. Concerning the confusion between Christ and Sol, see below.
Footnote 132:
Compare Freud: “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.”
Footnote 133:
Renan (“Dialogues et fragments philosophiques,” p. 168) says: “Before religion had reached the stage of proclaiming that God must be put into the absolute and ideal, that is to say, beyond this world, one worship alone was reasonable and scientific: that was the worship of the sun.”
Footnote 134:
The path of the visible Gods will appear through the sun, the God my father.
Footnote 135:
Buber: “Ekstat. Konfess.,” p. 51 and on.
Footnote 136:
“Liebesgesänge an Gott,” cited by Buber: “Ekstat. Konfess.,” p. 40. An allied symbolism is found in Carlyle: “The great fact of existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he can not get out of the awful presence of this reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real is life, real is death, is this universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he can not. At all moments the Flame-image glares in upon him” (“Heroes and Hero-Worship”).
One can select from literature at random. For example, S. Friedländer (Berlin-Halensee) says in _Jugend_, 1910, No. 35, p. 823: “Her longing demands from the beloved only the purest. Like the sun, it burns to ashes with the flame of excessive life, which refuses to be light,” and so on.
Footnote 137:
Buber: Ibid., p. 45.
Footnote 138:
I emphasize this passage because its idea contains the psychological root of the “Wandering of the soul in Heaven,” the conception of which is very ancient. It is a conception of the wandering sun which from its rising to its setting wanders over the world. The wandering gods are representations of the sun, that is, symbols of the libido. This comparison is indelibly impressed in the human phantasy as is shown by the poem of Wesendonck:
GRIEF.
The sun, every evening weeping, Reddens its beautiful eyes for you; When early death seizes you, Bathing in the mirror of the sea.
Still in its old splendor The glory rises from the dark world; You awaken anew in the morning Like a proud conqueror.
Ah, why then should I lament, When my heart, so heavy, sees you? Must the sun itself despair? Must the sun set?
And does death alone bear life? Do griefs alone give joys? O, how grateful I am that Such pains have given me nature!
Another parallel is in the poem of Ricarda Huch:
As the earth, separating from the sun, Withdraws in quick flight into the stormy night, Starring the naked body with cold snow, Deafened, it takes away the summer joy. And sinking deeper in the shadows of winter, Suddenly draws close to that which it flees, Sees itself warmly embraced with rosy light Leaning against the lost consort. Thus I went, suffering the punishment of exile, Away from your countenance, into the ancient place. Unprotected, turning to the desolate north, Always retreating deeper into the sleep of death; And then would I awake on your heart, Blinded by the splendor of the dawn.
Footnote 139:
Translated by Dr. T. G. Wrench.
Footnote 140:
After you have said the second prayer, when silence is twice commanded; then whistle twice and snap twice,[856] 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.
Footnote 141:
Five-fingered stars.
Footnote 142:
“Ecce Homo,” translated by A. M. Ludovici.
Footnote 143:
The water-god Sobk, appearing as a crocodile, was identified with Rê.
Footnote 144:
Erman: “Aegypten,” p. 354.
Footnote 145:
Erman: Ibid., p. 355.
Footnote 146:
Compare above ἀστέρας πενταδακτυλιαίους (“five-fingered stars”).
Footnote 147:
The bull Apis is a manifestation of Ptah. The bull is a well-known symbol of the sun.
Footnote 148:
Amon.
Footnote 149:
Sobk of Faijum.
Footnote 150:
The God of Dedu in the Delta, who was worshipped as a piece of wood. (Phallic.)
Footnote 151:
This reformation, which was inaugurated with much fanaticism, soon broke down.
Footnote 152:
Apuleius, “Met.,” lib. XI, p. 239.
Footnote 153:
It is noteworthy that the humanists too (I am thinking of an expression of the learned Mutianus Rufus) soon perceived that antiquity had but two gods, that is, a masculine god and a feminine god.
Footnote 154:
Not only was the light- or fire-substance ascribed to the divinity but also to the soul; as for example in the system of Mâni, as well as among the Greeks, where it was characterized as a fiery breath of air. The Holy Ghost of the New Testament appears in the form of flames around the heads of the Apostles, because the πνεῦμα was understood to mean “fiery” (Dieterich: Ibid., p. 116). Very similar is the Iranian conception of Hvarenô, by which is meant the “Grace of Heaven” through which a monarch rules. By “Grace” is understood a sort of fire or shining glory, something very substantial (Cumont: Ibid., p. 70). We come across conceptions allied in character in Kerner’s “Seherin von Prevorst,” and in the case published by me, “Psychologie und Pathologie sogenannter occulter Phänomene.” Here not only the souls consist of a spiritual light-substance, but the entire world is constructed according to the white-black system of the Manichæans—and this by a fifteen-year-old girl! The intellectual over-accomplishment which I observed earlier in this creation, is now revealed as a consequence of energetic introversion, which again roots up deep historical strata of the soul and in which I perceive a regression to the memories of humanity condensed in the unconscious.
Footnote 155:
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.
Footnote 156:
I add to this a quotation from Firmicus Maternus (Mathes. I, 5, 9, cit. by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 40): “Cui (animo) descensus per orbem solis tribuitur” (To this spirit the descent through the orb of the sun is attributed).
Footnote 157:
St. Hieronymus remarks, concerning Mithra who was born in a miraculous manner from a rock, that this birth was the result of “solo aestu libidinis” (merely through the heat of the libido) (Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 163).
Footnote 158:
Mead: “A Mithraic Ritual.” London 1907, p. 22.
Footnote 159:
I am indebted to my friend and co-worker, Dr. Riklin, for the knowledge of the following case which presents an interesting symbolism. It concerns a paranoic who passed over into a manifest megalomaniac in the following way: She suddenly saw a _strong light_, a _wind blew_ upon her, she felt as if “her heart turned over,” and from that moment she knew that God had visited her and was in her.
I wish to refer here to the interesting correlation of mythological and pathological forms disclosed in the analytical investigation of Dr. S. Spielrein, and expressly emphasize that she has discovered the symbolisms presented by her in the _Jahrbuch_, through independent experimental work, in no way connected with my work.
Footnote 160:
“You will see the god youthful, graceful, with glowing locks, in a white garment and a scarlet cloak, with a fiery helmet.”
Footnote 161:
“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.”
Footnote 162:
According to the Chaldean teaching the sun occupies the middle place in the choir of the seven planets.
Footnote 163:
The Great Bear consists of seven stars.
Footnote 164:
Mithra is frequently represented with a knife in one hand and a torch in the other. The knife as an instrument of sacrifice plays an important rôle in his myth.
Footnote 165:
Ibid.
Footnote 166:
Compare with this the scarlet mantle of Helios in the Mithra liturgy. It was a part of the rites of the various cults to be dressed in the bloody skins of the sacrificial animals, as in the Lupercalia, Dionysia and Saturnalia, the last of which has bequeathed to us the Carnival, the typical figure of which, in Rome, was the priapic Pulcinella.
Footnote 167:
Compare the linen-clad retinue of Helios. Also the bull-headed gods wear white περιζώματα (aprons).
Footnote 168:
The title of Mithra in Vendidad XIX, 28; cit. by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” p. 37.
Footnote 169:
The development of the sun symbol in Faust does not go as far as an anthropomorphic vision. It stops in the suicide scene at the chariot of Helios (“A fiery chariot borne on buoyant pinions sweeps near me now”). The fiery chariot comes to receive the dying or departing hero, as in the ascension of Elijah or of Mithra. (Similarly Francis of Assisi.) In his flight Faust passes over the sea, just as does Mithra. The ancient Christian pictorial representations of the ascension of Elijah are partly founded upon the corresponding Mithraic representations. The horses of the sun-chariot rushing upwards to Heaven leave the solid earth behind, and pursue their course over a water god, Oceanus, lying at their feet. (Cumont: “Textes et Monuments.” Bruxelles 1899, I, p. 178.)
Footnote 170:
Compare my article, “Psych. und Path. sog. occ. Phän.”
Footnote 171:
Quoted from Pitra: “Analecta sacra,” cit. by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” p. 355.
Footnote 172:
Helios, the rising sun—the only sun rising from heaven!
Footnote 173:
Cited from Usener: “Weihnachtsfest,” p. 5.
Footnote 174:
“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.”
Footnote 175:
The passage from Malachi is found in chap. iv, 2: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings” (feathers). This figure of speech recalls the Egyptian sun symbol.
Footnote 176:
Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” t. I, p. 355. περὶ ἀστρονόμων.
Footnote 177:
“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.’”
Footnote 178:
“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.”
Footnote 179:
The pictures in the Catacombs contain much symbolism of the sun. The Swastika cross, for example—a well-known image of the sun, wheel of the sun, or sun’s feet—is found upon the garment of Fossor Diogenes in the cemetery of Peter and Marcellinus. The symbols of the rising sun, the bull and the ram, are found in the Orpheus fresco of the cemetery of the holy Domitilla. Similarly the ram and the peacock (which, like the phœnix, is the symbol of the sun) is found upon an epitaph of the Callistus Catacomb.
Footnote 180:
Compare the countless examples in Görres: “Die christliche Mystik.”
Footnote 181:
Compare Leblant: “Sarcophages de la Gaule,” 1880. In the “Homilies” of Clement of Rome (“Hom.,” II, 23, cit. by Cumont) it is said: Τῷ κυρίῳ γεγονάσιν δώδεκα ἀπόστολοι τῶν τοῦ ἡλίου δώδεκα μηνῶν φέροντες τὸν ἀριθμόν (The twelve apostles of the Lord, having the number of the twelve months of the sun). As is apparent, this idea is concerned with the course of the sun through the Zodiac. Without wishing to enter upon an interpretation of the Zodiac, I mention that, according to the ancient view (probably Chaldean), the course of the sun was represented by a snake which carried the signs of the Zodiac on its back (similarly to the Leontocephalic God of the Mithra mysteries). This view is proven by a passage from a Vatican Codex edited by Cumont in another connection (190, saec. XIII, p. 229, p. 85): “τότε ὁ πάνσοφος δημιουργὸς ἄκρῳ νεύματι ἐκίνησε τὸν μέγαν δράκοντα σὺν τῷ κεκοσμημένῳ στεφάνῳ, λέγω δὴ τὰ ἰβ’ ζῴδια, βαστάζοντα ἐπὶ τοῦ νώτου αὐτοῦ” (The all-wise maker of the world set in motion the great dragon with the adorned crown, with a command at the end. I speak now of the twelve images borne on the back of this).
This inner connection of the ζῴδια (small images) with the zodiacal snake is worthy of notice and gives food for thought. The Manichæan system attributes to Christ the symbol of the snake, and indeed of the snake on the tree of Paradise. For this the quotation from John gives far-reaching justification (John iii:14): “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.” An old theologian, Hauff (“Biblische Real- und Verbalkonkordanz,” 1834), makes this careful observation concerning this quotation: “Christ considered the Old Testament story an unintentional symbol of the idea of the atonement.” The almost bodily connection of the followers with Christ is well known. (Romans xii:4): “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” If confirmation is needed that the zodiacal signs are symbols of the libido, then the sentence in John i:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” assumes a significant meaning.
Footnote 182:
According to an eleventh-century manuscript in Munich; Albrecht Wirth: “Aus orientalischen Chroniken,” p. 151. Frankfurt 1894.
Footnote 183:
“To Zeus, the Great Sun God, the King, the Saviour.”
Footnote 184:
Abeghian: “Der armenische Volksglaube,” p. 41, 1899.
Footnote 185:
Compare Aigremont: “Fuss- und Schuhsymbolik,” Leipzig 1909.
Footnote 186:
Attis was later assimilated with Mithra. Like Mithra he was represented with the Phrygian cap (Cumont: “Myst. des Mith.,” p. 65). According to the testimony of Hieronymus, the manger (Geburtshöhle) at Bethlehem was originally a sanctuary (Spelæum) of Attis (Usener: “Weihnachtsfest,” p. 283).
Footnote 187:
Cumont (“Die Mysterien des Mithra,” p. 4) says of Christianity and Mithracism: “Both opponents perceived with astonishment how similar they were in many respects, without being able to account for the causes of this similarity.”
Footnote 188:
Our present-day moral views come into conflict with this wish in so far as it concerns the erotic fate. The erotic adventures necessary for so many people are often all too easily given up because of moral opposition, and one willingly allows himself to be discouraged because of the social advantages of being moral.
Footnote 189:
The poetical works of Lord Byron.
Footnote 190:
Edmond Rostand: “Cyrano de Bergerac,” Paris 1898.
Footnote 191:
The projection into the “cosmic” is the primitive privilege of the libido, for it enters into our perception naturally through all the avenues of the senses, apparently from without, and in the form of pain and pleasure connected with the objects. This we attribute to the object without further thought, and we are inclined, in spite of our philosophic considerations, to seek the causes in the object, which often has very little concern with it. (Compare this with the Freudian conception of Transference, especially Firenczi’s remarks in his paper, “Introjektion und Übertragung,” _Jahrbuch_, Vol. I, p. 422.) Beautiful examples of direct libido projection are found in erotic songs:
“Down on the strand, down on the shore, A maiden washed the kerchief of her lover; And a soft west wind came blowing over the shore, Lifted her skirt a little with its breeze And let a little of her ankles be seen, And the seashore became as bright as all the world.”
(Neo-Grecian Folksong from Sanders: “Das Volksleben der Neugriechen,” 1844, p. 81, cit. _Zeitschrift des Vereines für Volkskunde_, Jahrgang XII, 1902, p. 166.)
“In the farm of Gymir I saw A lovely maiden coming toward me; From the brilliance of her arm glowed The sky and all the everlasting sea.”
(From the Edda, tr. (into Ger.) by H. Gering, p. 53; _Zeitschrift für Volkskunde_, Jahrgang XII, 1902, p. 167.)
Here, too, belong all the miraculous stories of cosmic events, phenomena occurring at the birth and death of heroes. (The Star of Bethlehem; earthquakes, the rending asunder of the temple hangings, etc., at the death of Christ.) The omnipotence of God is the manifest omnipotence of the libido, the only actual doer of wonders which we know. The symptom described by Freud, as the “omnipotence of thought” in Compulsion Neuroses arises from the “sexualizing” of the intellect. The historical parallel for this is the magical omnipotence of the mystic, attained by introversion. The “omnipotence of thought” corresponds to the identification with God of the paranoic, arrived at similarly through introversion.
Footnote 192:
Comparable to the mythological heroes who after their greatest deeds fall into spiritual confusion.
Footnote 193:
Here I must refer you to the blasphemous piety of Zinzendorf, which has been made accessible to us by the noteworthy investigation of Pfister.
Footnote 194:
Anah is really the beloved of Japhet, the son of Noah. She leaves him because of the angel.
Footnote 195:
The one invoked is really a star. Compare Miss Miller’s poem.
Footnote 196:
Really an attribute of the wandering sun.
Footnote 197:
Compare Miss Miller’s poem.
“My poor life is gone,
· · · · ·
then having gained One raptured glance, I’ll die content, For I the source of beauty, warmth and life Have in his perfect splendor once beheld.”
Footnote 198:
The light-substance of God.
Footnote 199:
The light-substance of the individual soul.
Footnote 200:
The bringing together of the two light-substances shows their common origin; they are the symbols of the libido. Here they are figures of speech. In earlier times they were doctrines. According to Mechthild von Magdeburg the soul is made out of love (“Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit,” herausgegeben von Escherich, Berlin 1909).
Footnote 201:
Compare what is said above about the snake symbol of the libido. The idea that the climax means at the same time the end, even death, forces itself here.
Footnote 202:
Compare the previously mentioned pictures of Stuck: Vice, Sin and Lust, where the woman’s naked body is encircled by the snake. Fundamentally it is a symbol of the most extreme fear of death. The death of Cleopatra may be mentioned here.
Footnote 203:
Encircling by the serpent.