The Adversarial Unconscious Part 2: The Great Mother

Following the previous episode, I present how the Great Mother can become a source of distress for the ego. This other side of the Mother leads to an investigation of her existence in Christianity. After a psychological interpretation of the Black Madonna, I eventually turn to Alice in Wonderland.

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Show notes

- "As we have seen, the danger comes from both parents: from the father, because he apparently makes regression impossible, and from the mother, because she absorbs the regressing libido and keeps it to herself, so that he who sought rebirth finds only death." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 511)

- "We would then have a patrilineal and a matrilineal source of anxiety to match the primitive conditions." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 216)

- "[T]he Terrible Mother who devours and destroys, and thus symbolizes death itself." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 504)

- For the discussion between Mary and the Cross as Mother of Life and Mother of Death, see Jung's Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 411-415.

- "I am black, but comely[.]" (Song of Songs 1:5)

- "The quaternity as union of the Three seems to be aimed at by the Assumption of Mary. This dogma adds the feminine element to the masculine Trinity, the terrestrial element (virgo terra!) to the spiritual, and thus sinful man to the Godhead. For Mary in her character of omnium gratiarum mediatrix intercedes for the sinner before the judge of the world." (Psychology and Religion, CW 12, par 1552)

- "For a long time there had been a psychological need for this, as is evident from the medieval pictures of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin; it was also responsible for elevating her to the position of mediatrix, corresponding to Christ’s position as the mediator, with the difference that Mary only transmits grace but does not generate it." (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 237)

- The Immaculate Conception, one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Mariology#Dogmatic_teachings

- "By having these special measures applied to her, Mary is elevated to the status of a goddess and consequently loses something of her humanity: she will not conceive her child in sin, like all other mothers, and therefore he also will never be a human being, but a god. To my knowledge at least, no one has ever perceived that this queers the pitch for a genuine Incarnation of God, or rather, that the Incarnation was only partially consummated. Both mother and son are not real human beings at all, but gods." (Answer to Job, CW 11, par 626)

- "The dogmatization of the Assumptio Mariae points to the hieros gamos in the pleroma, and this in turn implies, as we have said, the future birth of the divine child, who, in accordance with the divine trend towards incarnation, will choose as his birthplace the empirical man. The metaphysical process is known to the psychology of the unconscious as the individuation process." (Answer to Job, CW 11, par 755)

- "The difference between the “natural” individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight." (Answer to Job, CW 11, par 756)

- "In so far as this process, as a rule, runs its course un-unconsciously as it has from time immemorial, it means no more than that the acorn becomes an oak, the calf a cow, and the child an adult. But if the individuation process is made conscious, consciousness must confront the unconscious and a balance between the opposites must be found. As this is not possible through logic, one is dependent on symbols which make the irrational union of opposites possible. They are produced spontaneously by the unconscious and are amplified by the conscious mind. The central symbols of this process describe the self, which is man’s totality, consisting on the one hand of that which is conscious to him, and on the other hand of the contents of the unconscious. The self is the τάλειος; άανθρωπος, the whole man, whose symbols are the divine child and its synonyms." (Answer to Job, CW 11, par 755)

- "For this cause have I laboured night by night with crying, my jaws are become hoarse; who is the man that liveth, knowing and understanding, delivering my soul from the hand of hell? They that explain me shall have (eternal) life, and to him I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in paradise, and to sit with me on the throne of my kingdom. He that shall dig for me as money and obtain me as a treasure and shall not disturb the tears of my eyes and shall not deride my garment, shall not poison my meat and my drink and shall not defile with fornication the couch of my rest, and shall not violate my whole body which is exceeding delicate[.]" (Marie-Louise von Franz, Aurora Consurgens, pp. 57-59)

- “Were it not for that cautionary remark about possible defilement, the passage could be interpreted as the soul yearning for her soul-mate Christ; but then there would be no need of this anxious request that he should not injure her. The anima is not calling Christ to her aid, but a human ego. […]" (Marie-Louise von Franz, Aurora Consurgens, p. 232)

- On the Kore, the maiden as anima for men and as the self for women, see Jung's The Psychological Aspects of the Kore in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, CW 9i.

- "I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion – a blind and aimless Fury. The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking around." (Martin Gardner, The Annotated Alice)

- "It's all her fancy: they never executed nobody, you know." (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

- "The King stands for the ruling principle of consciousness." (Psychology and Religion, CW 12, par 1721)

- "The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm – she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses!" (Martin Gardner, The Annotated Alice)

- "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" is part of the Nag Hammadi library, http://gnosis.org/naghamm/thunder.html