Psychology of the Unconscious / A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought

by C. G. Jung

With unknown freshness over lands and seas.”

After the birth the four genii of the East, West, South and North come to render service as bearers of the palanquin. (The coming of the wise men at Christ’s birth.) We also find here a distinct reference to the “four winds.” For the completion of the symbolism there is to be found in the Buddha myth, as well as in the birth legend of Christ, besides the impregnation by star and wind, also the fertilization by an animal, here an elephant, which with its phallic trunk fulfilled in Maya the Christian method of fructification through the ear or the head. It is well known that, in addition to the dove, the unicorn is also a procreative symbol of the Logos.

Here arises the question why the birth of a hero always had to take place under such strange symbolic circumstances? It might also be imagined that a hero arose from ordinary surroundings and gradually grew out of his inferior environment, perhaps with a thousand troubles and dangers. (And, indeed, this motive is by no means strange in the hero myth.) It might be said that superstition demands strange conditions of birth and generation; but why does it demand them?

The answer to this question is: that the birth of the hero, as a rule, is not that of an ordinary mortal, but is a rebirth from the mother-spouse; hence it occurs under mysterious ceremonies. Therefore, in the very beginning, lies the motive of the two mothers of the hero. As Rank[^[639]] has shown us through many examples, the hero is often obliged to experience exposure, and upbringing by foster parents, and in this manner he acquires the two mothers. A striking example is the relation of Hercules to Hera. In the Hiawatha epic Wenonah dies after the birth and Nokomis takes her place. Maya dies after the birth[^[640]] and Buddha is given a stepmother. The stepmother is sometimes an animal (the she-wolf of Romulus and Remus, etc.). The twofold mother may be replaced by the motive of twofold birth, which has attained a lofty significance in the Christian mythology; namely, through baptism, which, as we have seen, represents rebirth. Thus man is born not merely in a commonplace manner, but also born again in a mysterious manner, by means of which he becomes a participator of the kingdom of God, of immortality. Any one may become a hero in this way who is generated anew through his own mother, because only through her does he share in immortality. Therefore, it happened that the death of Christ on the cross, which creates universal salvation, was understood as “baptism”; that is to say, as rebirth through the second mother, the mysterious tree of death. Christ says:

“But I have a baptism to be baptized with: and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”—Luke xii: 50.

He interprets his death agony symbolically as birth agony.

The motive of the two mothers suggests the thought of self-rejuvenation, and evidently expresses the fulfilment of the wish that it might be possible for the mother to bear me again; at the same time, applied to the heroes, it means one is a hero who is borne again by her who has previously been his mother; that is to say, a hero is he who may again produce himself through his mother.

The countless suggestions in the history of the procreation of the heroes indicate the latter formulations. Hiawatha’s father first overpowered the mother under the symbol of the bear; then himself becoming a god, he procreates the hero. What Hiawatha had to do as hero, Nokomis hinted to him in the legend of the origin of the moon; he is forcibly to throw his mother upwards (or throw downwards?); then she would become pregnant by this act of violence and could bring forth a daughter. This rejuvenated mother would be allotted, according to the Egyptian rite, as a daughter-wife to the sun-god, the father of his mother, for self-reproduction. What action Hiawatha takes in this regard we shall see presently. We have already studied the behavior of the pre-Asiatic gods related to Christ. Concerning the pre-existence of Christ, the Gospel of St. John is full of this thought. Thus the speech of John the Baptist:

“This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me; for he was before me.”—John i: 30.

Also the beginning of the gospel is full of deep mythologic significance: