If it is now clear also that in introversion, as a [pg 247] result of the regression that is connected with it, visions of “titanic” emotions (incest, separating of parents, etc.) are encountered, yet it has not become in the slightest degree comprehensible how these visions are related to the treatment of anagogic ideas. And that is indeed the question.
We can really understand these striking facts better if we recall what I have said above about the type formation and the intro-determination of the symbols, namely, that symbols can depart from their original narrower meaning and become types for an entire class of experiences whereby an advance is made from the material to the functional meaning. Some examples will elucidate this.
I have observed particularly fine cases of intro-determination in a series of experiments in basin divination (lecanomancy) which I have carried on for several years. Lecanomancy resembles crystal gazing, except that the gazer looks into a basin of water. In the visions of my subject, Lea, typical forms were pictured, which always recurred. Regarded as symbols they were, as subsequent analysis showed, almost all subjected to inward accentuation or intro-determination. Thus, for instance, a black cat appeared. At first it appeared as representative of Lea's grandmother, who was cat-like, malicious and fawning. Later the cat stood for the corresponding traits that she perceived in herself. Above all the cat is the symbol of her grandmother, so the grandmother (or cat) is a mental current of Lea. Frequently there appears in the image a Dyas, sometimes [pg 248] in the shape of a two-headed snake, of two hands, of two feet, or of a woman with two faces, etc. Above all, every antithesis appears to have some external meaning, two men who love each other, etc. So it becomes clear that the common element which finds its most pregnant expression in the double faced woman is the Dyas in itself and that it means bisexuality, psychic hermaphroditism. More than that it is definitely certain that the deepest sense of the symbol means a complete dissociation of Lea's character into two different personalities, one of which may be called the savage and the other the mild. (Lea herself uses the expressions cynical and ideal personality.) In one of the later experiments Lea saw her cynic double vividly personified and spoke in this character, which is closely related to the “black cat.” The Dyas in the symbols has the value first of a representation of externals (two lovers, etc.), then as symbols of bisexuality. The sexual Dyas can again be conceived as a symbol or characteristic of a still more general and comprehensive dissociation of the ego. A further symbol and one still more tending towards intro-determination was death. Starting from connections with definite external experiences and ideas of actual death, the meaning of the symbol became more and more spiritual, till it reached the meaning of the fading away of psychic impulses. What died symbolically or had to die was represented by an old man who sacrificed himself after suffering all kinds of fortune. The dying of this old man signified, as [pg 249] analysis showed, the same thing that we call the “putting off the old Adam” (turning over a new leaf). The figure of the old man, originally Lea's grandfather, then her father, came to have this meaning only after a long process of intro-determination.
A few more examples for typical figures.
In many dreams of a woman analyzed by me (Pauline, in my treatise Zur Symbolbildung), a cow appears as a typical image. The alternation of this cow with more or less definite mother symbols leads to identification of the cow with the mother. Two circumstantial dreams that were fully analyzed showed, however, that the cow and other forms with which she alternated cannot be translated so correctly by the concept of mother as by that of the maternal authority and finally still more correctly by self-criticism or conscience, of which maternal authority is but a type. Children figure in Pauline's case as a result of various experiences, as typical of obstacles.
In the case of another dreamer the father stands in similar relation as the determinant that paralyzes his resolutions.
The climbing of an ascent, usually a symbol of coitus (hurrying upward which makes us out of breath), turns out often in a deeper relation as the effort to get from the disagreeable things of life to a place of retreat (lonely attics, etc.), inaccessible to other persons (= thoughts); and now we see that this deeper meaning appears without prejudice to the first, for even coitus, like all transport, is only [pg 250] a special case of flight from the outer life, one of the forms of spiritual oblivion. Hence in part the mythologically and psychopathologically important comparison of intoxication, intoxicating drink and sperm, soma and semen. Ascent = coitus is in this case a type for a quite comprehensive class of experience.
Marcinowski found in his analyses that the father in dream life often was a “symbol of an outlived, obsolete attitude.” (Z. Bl. f. Ps., II, 9.)
Other examples of types are the phallus, the sun and other religiously revered objects, if we regard them as does Jung (Wandl. u. Sym., Jb. ps. F., III-IV) as a symbol of the libido. [The concept of which is extended by Jung almost to Schopenhauer's Will.] The typical character of divine personalities is moreover quite clearly emphasized by Jung himself.
The snake, about whose significance as a “negative phallus,” etc. [developed in detail by Jung], we shall have more to say, can also be regarded as a typical image. Bull, cow and other animal forms are in mythology as in dreams typical transmutations, with unlimited possibility of intro-determination. Dogs are often in dreams the representations of animal propensities. The beast is often “la bête humaine” in the dreamer's own inner life. We have become acquainted with the terrible lions, the bears, etc., as father types; here we get a new perspective which makes clear the one-sidedness of our first conception.