CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

LECTURE 4
living in svvdhiü°hvna inasmuch as they deposit their visiting cards at
trees and corners. The dogs that come after read the messages and know
from them how the land lies, whether the preceding dog was fed or
empty, whether it was a large or a small dog—an important difference in
the breeding season. Thus dogs can give all sorts of news about one another
and can direct themselves accordingly.
This first and lowest means of expressing psychic life is also still used by
human beings, for instance by very primitive criminals. You know what is
meant by grumus merdae (mound of excrement). The thief deposits his
excrement in the place he has looted and says in this way: “This is my
signature; this belongs to me; woe to him who crosses my path.” Thus it
becomes a sort of apotropaic charm—a relic of archaic times. For in primitive
conditions this sign language actually has a great, even a vital, importance.
A person can tell by it whether dangerous or useful animals have
made a given track and whether the track is fresh or not. Naturally the
same thing is true of human tracks; if hostile tribes are in the neighborhood,
fresh human excrement is a sign of alarm. The more primitive the
conditions of life, the more valuable the psychic manifestations of this
level. We could say it is the first speech of nature. Psychic manifestations
belonging to svvdhiü°hvna are therefore often present in our dreams, and
certain witticisms and the broad jokes of the Middle Ages are full of them.
As to mÖlvdhvra, we know nothing about it because at this level psychic
life is dormant. Mr. Allemann is therefore quite correct in saying that
mÖlvdhvra is the life of animals and primitives who live in complete harmony
with nature. Our cultivated life, on the other hand, is to be looked
at as the sthÖla aspect of the higher cakras. The awakening of Kundalini
would then be similar to the conscious understanding of the sÖküma aspect.
That is quite true. But what must we do in order to understand
consciously the sÖküma aspect of mÖlvdhvra, or of the earth?
Here we meet again the great paradox. In consciousness we are in
vjñv, and yet we actually live in mÖlvdhvra. ThatisthesthÖla aspect. But
can we win another aspect? As we know, we cannot understand a thing if
we are still immersed in it and identified with it. Only when we reach a
standpoint that is “outside” the experience in question, can we wholly
understand what we were experiencing before. Thus, for example, we
can form an objective judgment of the nation, race, or continent to
which we belong only when we have lived for a time in a foreign country
and so are able to look at our own country from without.
How, then, can we put aside our personal standpoint, which represents
the sthÖla aspect, and take another, a suprapersonal one which will
show us where we actually are in this world? How can we find out that we
are in mÖlvdhvra? MÖlvdhvra is a condition of psychic sleep, we have said;
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