CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

26 OCTOBER 1932
Now, in talking about these centers, we must never omit the actual
symbols; they teach us a great deal. I want to call your attention to the
animal symbolism of which I have not yet spoken. You know that the
series of animals begins in mÖlvdhvra with the elephant that supports the
earth, meaning that tremendous urge which supports human consciousness,
the power that forces us to build such a conscious world. To the
Hindu the elephant functions as the symbol of the domesticated libido,
parallel to the image of the horse with us. It means the force of consciousness,
the power of will, the ability to do what one wants to do.
In the next center is the makara, the leviathan. So in crossing from
mÖlvdhvra to svvdhiü°hvna, the power that has nourished you hitherto
shows now an entirely different quality: what is the elephant on the surface
of the world is the leviathan in the depths. The elephant is the biggest,
strongest animal upon the surface of the earth, and the leviathan is
the biggest and most terrible animal down in the waters. But it is one and
the same animal: the power that forces you into consciousness and that
sustains you in your conscious world proves to be the worst enemy when
you come to the next center. For there you are really going out of this
world, and everything that makes you cling to it is your worst enemy. The
greatest blessing in this world is the greatest curse in the unconscious. So
the makara is just the reverse: the water elephant, the whale dragon that
devours you, is the thing that has nourished and supported you hitherto—just
as the benevolent mother that brought you up becomes in
later life a devouring mother that swallows you again. If you cannot give
her up she becomes an absolutely negative factor—she supports the life
of your childhood and youth, but to become adult you must leave all
that, and then the mother force is against you. So anyone attempting to
leave this world for another kind of consciousness, the water world or the
unconscious, has the elephant against him; then the elephant becomes
the monster of the underworld.
In maõipÖra the ram is the symbolic animal, and the ram is the sacred
animal of Agni, the god of fire. That is astrological. The ram, Aries, is the
domicilium of Mars, the fiery planet of passions, impulsiveness, rashness,
violence, and so on. Agni is an apt symbol. It is again the elephant, but
in a new form. And it is no longer an insurmountable power—the sacred
power of the elephant. It is now a sacrificial animal, and it is a relatively
small sacrifice—not the great sacrifice of the bull but the smaller sacrifice
of the passions. That is, to sacrifice the passions is not so terribly
expensive. The small black animal that is against you is no longer like the
leviathan of the depths in the cakra before; the danger has already diminished.
Your own passions are really less a danger than to be drowned
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