Gulps and strangles.
The monstrous death gazes, glowing brown,
And chews—his life is his chewing ...
Forget not, O man, burnt out by lust,
Thou art the stone, the desert,
Thou art death!”
The serpent symbolism of the Last Supper is explained by the identification of the hero with the serpent: The god is buried in the mother: as fruit of the field, as food coming from the mother and at the same time as drink of immortality he is received by the mystic, or as a serpent he unites with the mystic. All these symbols represent the liberation of the libido from the incestuous fixation through which new life is attained. The liberation is accomplished under symbols, which represent the activity of the incest wish.
It might be justifiable at this place to cast a glance upon psychoanalysis as a method of treatment. In practical analysis it is important, first of all, to discover the libido lost from the control of consciousness. (It often happens to the libido as with the fish of Moses in the Mohammedan legend; it sometimes “takes its course in a marvellous manner into the sea.”) Freud says in his important article, “Zur Dynamik der Übertragung”:[[784]]
“The libido has retreated into regression and again revives the infantile images.”
This means, mythologically, that the sun is devoured by the serpent of the night, the treasure is concealed and guarded by the dragon: substitution of a present mode of adaptation by an infantile mode, which is represented by the corresponding neurotic symptoms. Freud continues: