[47]. Compare also the sodomitic phantasies in the “Metamorphoses” of Apuleius. In Herculaneum, for example, corresponding sculptures have been found.
[48]. Ferrero: “Les lois psychologiques du symbolisme.”
[49]. With the exception of the fact that the thoughts enter consciousness already in a high state of complexity, as Wundt says.
[50]. Schelling: “Philosophie der Mythologie,” Werke, Pt. II, considers the “preconscious” as the creative source, also H. Fichte (“Psychologie,” I, p. 508) considers the preconscious region as the place of origin of the real content of dreams.
[51]. Compare, in this connection, Flournoy: “Des Indes à la planète Mars.” Also Jung: “Zur Psychologie und Pathologie sogenannter okkulter Phänomene,” and “Über die Psychologie der Dementia praecox.” Excellent examples are to be found in Schreber: “Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken.” Mutze, Leipzig.
[52]. “Jardin d’Épicure.”
[53]. The figure of Judas acquires a great psychological significance as the priestly sacrificer of the Lamb of God, who, by this act, sacrifices himself at the same time. (Self-destruction.) Compare Pt. II of this work.
[54]. Compare with this the statements of Drews (“The Christ Myth”), which are so violently combated by the blindness of our time. Clear-sighted theologians, like Kalthoff (“Entstehung des Christentums,” 1904), present as impersonal a judgment as Drews. Kalthoff says, “The sources from which we derive our information concerning the origin of Christianity are such that in the present state of historical research no historian would undertake the task of writing the biography of an historical Jesus.” Ibid., p. 10: “To see behind these stories the life of a real historical personage, would not occur to any man, if it were not for the influence of rationalistic theology.” Ibid., p. 9: “The divine in Christ, always considered an inner attribute and one with the human, leads in a straight line backward from the scholarly man of God, through the Epistles and Gospels of the New Testament, to the Apocalypse of Daniel, in which the theological imprint of the figure of Christ has arisen. At every single point of this line Christ shows superhuman traits; nowhere is He that which critical theology wished to make Him, simply a natural man, an historic individual.”
[55]. Compare J. Burckhardt’s letter to Albert Brenner (pub. by Hans Brenner in the Basle Jahrbuch, 1901): “I have absolutely nothing stored away for the special interpretation of Faust. You are well provided with commentaries of all sorts. Hark! let us at once take the whole foolish pack back to the reading-room from whence they have come. What you are destined to find in Faust, that you will find by intuition. Faust is nothing else than pure and legitimate myth, a great primitive conception, so to speak, in which everyone can divine in his own way his own nature and destiny. Allow me to make a comparison: What would the ancient Greeks have said had a commentator interposed himself between them and the Oedipus legend? There was a chord of the Oedipus legend in every Greek which longed to be touched directly and respond in its own way. And thus it is with the German nation and Faust.”
[56]. I will not conceal the fact that for a time I was in doubt whether I dare venture to reveal through analysis the intimate personality which the author, with a certain unselfish scientific interest, has exposed to public view. Yet it seemed to me that the writer would possess an understanding deeper than any objections of my critics. There is always some risk when one exposes one’s self to the world. The absence of any personal relation with Miss Miller permits me free speech, and also exempts me from those considerations due woman which are prejudicial to conclusions. The person of the author is on that account just as shadowy to me as are her phantasies; and, like Odysseus, I have tried to let this phantom drink only enough blood to enable it to speak, and in so doing betray some of the secrets of the inner life.