Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman

Volume 9: Animal Presences

Copyright James Hillman 2008
All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-88214-596-9 (Kindle/iBooks Edition 2013, v. 2.1)

Published by Spring Publications, Inc.
Putnam, Conn.
www.springpublications.com

Cover illustration:
James Lee Byars, Untitled, 1960. Black ink on Japanese paper. Estate of James Lee Byars; courtesy Michael Werner
Gallery, New York, London, Berlin


The Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman is published
in conjunction with Dallas Institute Publications,
Joanne H. Stroud, Director
The Dallas Inst it ut e of Humanit ies and Cult ure, Dallas, Texas
as integral part of its publications program concerned with the imaginative, mythic, and symbolic sources of culture.
Additional support for this publication has been provided by
The Fert el Foundat ion, New Orleans, Louisiana,
and by the Pacifica Graduat e Inst it ut e and Joseph Campbell Archives and Library, Carpinteria, California.

JAMES HILLMAN
ANIMAL
PRESENCES
SPRING PUBLICATIONS, INC.
PUTNAM, CONNECTI CUT
A Preface
The reader will find collect ed here essays and lect ures devot ed t o specific animal forms as well
as t he major Eranos paper from 1984 addressing t he t heme of t his volume as a whole: t he
presence of animals t o t he human psyche. I say t o t he human psyche rat her t han in, since
t he lat t er preposit ion would suggest t heir enclosure wit hin ant hropocent rism. To leaves t heir
locat ion unassigned.
While reviewing t he checklist of my writ ings t o make t he select ion for t his volume of t he
Uniform Edit ion I found t hat t he t heme of animal permeat es works all along t he way: UE 5,
animal images in alchemy; UE 6, animal shapes of Greek gods; UE 3, animal images in
depression and t he figure of t he ape; and more philosophically in UE 8, which includes lect ures
in Caracas (Cult ure and t he Animal Soul), at Tenri Universit y in Japan (Cosmology for Soul),
and in Dallas, Bachelards Laut ramont . The Dream and the Underworld has a short chapt er
on animals, and t he st udy of t he goat -god of t he ancient world, Pan and the Nightmare,
opened t he door t o t he animalist ic animism in all t he above-list ed lat er writ ings already in 1972.
Yet t hese part icular references do not reflect t he full presence of animals infused in my work.
My first piece of fict ion, published in 1950, climaxes in a bullfight , and my first book on
psychology, Emotion, published in 1960, aimed t o lift repression from a force once called
animal spirit s. I did not t hen make t he connect ion bet ween t he vit alit y of t he psyche and t he
psyches animal images t hat t he animal spirit s are indeed animal spirit s! Now, at t his lat e
st age, I see t hat I have been consist ent ly t rying t o preserve in psychology t hat which Cart esian
rat ionalit y fears and condemns. Indeed, if t here has been a st eady line, an act ual dominat ing
narrat ive in my subversive service t o psychology, it is what t his present volume elucidat es: t he
preservat ion of, even obeisance t o, t he animal spirit s.
J.H.
March 2008
1
The Animal Kingdom in the Human Dream
Polar Bear
During one of my it inerant t eaching seminars on animal images in dreams, a woman handed
me t his dream:
I was flying in an airplane piloted by my husband. As he was flying, I was looking at the scenery below. Then I told
him, Look, I see a polar bear under some water down there. My husband kept on flying. Then I looked at his radar
screen and the polar bear had registered on it along with something else as two Xs. Then my husband said, I think
Ill take a look, and he turned the plane around until we saw the polar bear again, still sitting under water.
When t he dreamer is flying and pilot ed by her husband what she is coupled wit h, t o, by, in
t hat syzygy she looks down on t he world as scenery. The scenery consist s in t he wat ers
below, where t here is a living animal. At first , t he animal appears in t he flying plane on t he radar
screen an abst ract kind of awareness of t he bear in t he flying, looking-down mind, which
makes t he husband say, I t hink, and t o re-spect , t hat is, look again, by t urning t he plane
around, revising his forward direct ion. The polar bear regist ers as an X, an unknown quant it y, in
fact , as t wo Xs, for t he dream says, The polar bear has regist ered on t he radar screen along
wit h somet hing else as t wo Xs. The bear is qualified by t he number t wo; somet hing else is
wit h it , somet hing more t o it , a second bear, a ghost bear, resonance regist ering only
abst ract ly. What is t his double bear st ill sit t ing, sit t ing st ill under wat er? A Jewish legend says
t hat each animal species has a corresponding one in t he wat er. Is t his bear in t he wat er t he
bear t hat did not get int o t he ark? Why does t his bear sit t here in t he wat ers below? Who is
t his bear? Why must t hey see it ?
Anot her polar-bear dream from a woman in her t hirt ies:
A polar bear is after me. I am terrified and try to close a door to keep him out. A man goes after him, and then I see
the bear come back, hurt. He has been hit by a car and his shoulder is all torn and bloody and he keeps looking at it
confused. I feel sorry, anguished that this happened. I didnt want him hurt, I just didnt want him to hurt me.
The dream exhibit s t he familiar mot if of pursuit by t he animal. But does t he bear pursue her
because it comes aft er her because she st ays ahead of it , count erphobic t o it , closing
doors against t he whit e animal t hat comes for her? An anonymous man goes aft er t he bear,
result ing in it s being hit and bloodied and confused by a car such is t he st rengt h of t he man
in t his womans dream and t he vehicle of her drive. It can confuse t he animal. But now t here is
reconciliat ion t hrough pain: as t he bear is wounded, she is anguished a relat ionship
conceived in t erms of hurt . Perhaps hurt has opened t he door bet ween t hem.
A t hird dream comes from a woman of fift y-t wo:
I see a large huge strong polar bear gleaming white and standing on the very far edge of his earth a point of ice
and snow at the top of the pole, and facing blue, icy water. He stands on his hind legs, upright, and his head is
thrown back, nose pointing to heaven, and he bellows, rends the air with anguish. Watching, I recognize that he is at
the end of his rope from searching for his mate and child and calls out in terrible agony and helpless power.
Gleaming whit e, at t he fart hest edge of eart h, at t he end of his rope, at t he t op of t he pole,
upright and point ing t o heaven, t his bear for all his power at t hat place is in agony. Not
because he is hunt ed or wounded but because in t his ext reme vert ical nort hernmost
point edness he cannot find his mat e and child; he is alone. Large, huge, and st rong, yet
helpless. What t errible anguish is rending t he air of her dream? What must be heard?
Wit nessing t his bear, t o what is t he woman bearing wit ness?
And now a fourt h dream of a polar bear, t his t ime from a man:
I am hunting a white polar bear in very cold wilderness, making every effort to kill it. After several vain attempts, the
white polar bear and I become friendly. It should be noted that although the atmosphere was a pure, clear cold, I
was not wearing heavy clothing. Suddenly, I am drowning in the middle of a lake as my brother and the polar bear
watch from the shore. Somehow, the white bear swims out and saves my life.
Not t he brot her swims out and saves my life but t he whit e bear, paired wit h my brot her and,
perhaps, more t han a brot her, at least in t he capacit y of saving his life. The bear he has been
t rying t o kill by making every effort (for so is how he t ries t o kill t he bear: by making every
effort ) saves his life. The vanit y of at t empt ing t o kill t he bear, yet t he pursuit of it , has brought
him int o friendly affinit y of hunt er wit h t he hunt ed. And it should be not ed t hat t his dreamer is
not wearing prot ect ive clot hing. He has his own inner heat now t hat he and t he bear are
friendly. Yet again: who, what is t he bear t hat saves my life?
These four dreamers are modern Americans. They have no empirical relat ions wit h polar
bears: t hey are not hunt ers, explorers, zoologist s, Eskimos. I am rat her cert ain t hey have not
read t he Kalevala, been t o t he Drachenloch (Dragons Lair), or st udied shamanism. Nor do I
believe t hey know about t he holy nat ure of t he whit e animal in folklore. I st rongly doubt t hat
t he woman in whose dream t he whit e bear howled for it s mat e and child has read Thomas
Bewicks illust rat ed eight eent h-cent ury A General History of Quadrupeds where it st at es t hat
among polar bears fondness for offspring is so great t hat t hey embrace t heir cubs t o t he last
and bemoan t hem wit h t he most pit eous cries. [1]
Wit hin t his condensed cont ext of a lect ure I cannot pret end t o deal adequat ely wit h dreams,
but were we ant hropologist s among t he peoples of t he nort hern polar circle, we would
recognize in t his polar bear what is called t he animal guardian, [2] t he mast er of animals who
is himself an animal and who is, more t han being prot ect or of t he hunt or t ot emic ancest or (t he
great whit e bear as grandfat her or grandmot her), t he supreme being in phenomenal form, as
Ivar Paulson says, among t he oldest t heophanies in t he religious life of mankind.
These whit e bears could be t heophanies, displays of divinit ies, present ing t he dilemmas, t he
agonies, t he pot ent ialit ies in precise det ail of what Jung called t he religious inst inct . In each
case we read how t he dreamer deals wit h t he whit e animal: behaves t oward it , feels in regard
t o it , and where he or she encount ers it . Yet a bear is more t han, ot her t han a religious inst inct .
An unknown quant it y is left over from t he reduct ion, t he image of t he polar bear it self, t he
ot her bear in t he wat er, and we t urn t o animal dreams also for t he animals sake.
The dreams were given t o me as an animal-dream collect or t o be used as I see fit , and I am
grat eful t o all dreamers whose dreams I shall be recount ing for t heir generosit y. The dreams
form part of a collect ion I began at t he Jung Inst it ut e in Zurich in 1959 for a st udy group t o
inquire int o animal mot ifs in dreams. The collect ion has grown over t he years. I should hast en
t o add t hat t hough t he mat erial is honest ly empirical, handed t o me in writ t en form by t he
dreamers and usually wit h no comment , or by analyst s, t he met hod of working t hese dreams is
not empirical in t he usual sense. No st at ist ical frequencies, no correlat ions bet ween dreams
and t he condit ion of t he dreamers as in t he fashion of t he old dream books: when you see a
polar bear in your dream, t hen you will cat ch a cold, or be lonely, find your life t hreat ened, or
saved, and so on. We soon gave up adducing t he significance of t his or t hat animal in direct
relat ion wit h diagnosis and prognosis. Too simple. There is a st range gap bet ween dream
research and dream int erpret at ion, bet ween a scient ific explanat ory psychology and an
underst anding imaginat ive psychology. It is like t he gap bet ween t he day world of nomot het ic
norms, inducing laws from many cases, and t he night world of idiographic descript ions: how t he
dream animal appears in an image, and what it means. Yet not What does it mean t o t he
dreamer? because we did not have t he dreamers. We t hus were at t empt ing t o underst and
t he dream animals as dream nat uralist s. What is t he animal kingdom in t he human dream?
How does it behave? What does it want ? What is t he relat ion bet ween dream animal and
dream human?
Perhaps our first result was t his st ruggle wit h met hod. The suspension ( epoch) of dreamer,
of t herapy and of t heory enabled us t o regard t he dream animal wit hout benefit of t herapeut ic
int ent ions or psycho-dynamic concept s more like a complex image, a depict ion in words, an
imaginat ive poesis of what Jung called t he object ive psyche. We did not t hen know it , but
looking back many years lat er, we were on t he road t o anot her kind of dreamwork: an
essentialist approach to the dream t oward what is essent ially going on in t he image. The
animals led us t o t his approach, as if t hey were t he essent ials of t he dreams, perhaps even
essences. What I have been gat hering from t hese animals has t aken t hese many years t o
begin t o find t his first writ t en formulat ion, which I dedicat e t o t he spirit of Adolf Port mann.
Pig
As we t urn now t o furt her dreams, let me say t hat I know how difficult it is t o list en at t he same
t ime t o t he dream and t o discourse about it . I know t hat each new dream you hear adds t o
your hermeneut ic frust rat ion. I beg your pat ient recept ivit y and a willing suspension of t he
act ive quest for meaning.
A woman report s:
I look down a deep, dark vertical tunnel. At the bottom, very deep, I gradually make out in the dim light, like firelight,
flickering, the head of a pig. It has a human expression, of malice and triumph combined. I see its head pulled up
and back at the very moment of its triumph. It looks at me with small black eyes, eyebrows raised; we look into each
others eyes.
The image places t he woman and t he pig in a direct connect ion t hat is vert ical, and t hrough
darkness, and gradual. The pig is deep, and where t he pig is, t here is fire and an unst eady
flickering light t hat comes from fire. At t he sight of each ot her, malice and t riumph combine in
t he pig which is a human expression, as if not nat ive t o t he pig. So it appears t o t he womans
looking-down perspect ive.
The woman, let us remember, is above t he pig, and t he dream says t he dept h is wit h t he
animal. It s head is t he raised one, while hers looks down. The vision in t he t unnel, a t unnel
vision excluding all else, narrows t he dreams focus int o it s essence: t he int ensit y of direct gaze
int o t he head of t he pig, it s black eye.
The mot if of t he animals eye being t ransfixed by it s look, moved by it s expression, it s
appeal, recalling on waking only it s eyes requires a moment s reflect ion about t he eye as
mirror of t he soul and t he eye as ent ry int o t he int eriorit y of a creat ure. As t he Brit ish nat uralist
E.L. Grant Wat son point ed out ,[3] we know t he nat ure of an animal t hrough it s eyes: t he
hooded eye of t he lizard; t he slight bloodshot panic in t he horse; t he luminous cows eye
reflect ing a dark inner soft ness as if glazed by it s own met abolic ruminat ions rat her t han
communicat ing out ward; t he obsidian bead-like eye of t he mouse t hat hardly sees; t he goat
eye, cat eye, fish eye, spaniel eye, eagle eye each dist inct , and some even as met aphors for
human t rait s.
Here t he eye communicat es t riumph and malice, as if t he soul of t his pig is small and black.
The head of an animal as pars pro toto appears in animal cult s and dreams. The head is t he
leading eidos of t he animal, it s idea or our recept ion of it as an idea, as if t he head present s an
animals specific physiognomy, condensing and exhibit ing t he qualit ies of it s consciousness.
We may assume t hat t he dreamer is beginning t o exchange perspect ives wit h t he pig, t aking
in pig as an idea int o her own head, and t he fire st irred by t his begins t o enlight en her
narrowed vision, a recognit ion t hat , while raising, uplift ing t he deep pig, she sees as a moment
of malicious t riumph for t he animal.
What more is t he woman seeing in t hat sows head? The hist ory of t he pig in human cult ure
suggest s she is seeing int o t he dept hs of her flesh, which is so much like t he pigs it s
st omach, lungs, int est ines so similar t hat anat omy from Galen t hrough t he Middle Ages used
t he pigs corpse as most apt analogy for t he human. Also, t he self-display of t he pig: oft en
pinkish, brownish, seemingly hairless, it s jowls and dugs and belly, it s rot und t orso wit h folds at
t he neck, short legs and soiled behind, it s copulat ory habit s, it s omnivorous appet it e like t he
human, enjoying everyt hing. Even human flesh is said t o t ast e most like pork.
This fleshly aspect of t he pig makes t he t erm an insult : a person called pig, swine, sow, or
hog means greedy, dirt y, sulky, coarse, obst inat e, glut t onous, filt hy, wit h best ial habit s. Edward
Topsells mid-sevent eent h-cent ury History of Four-Footed Beasts, [4] following largely from
Conrad Gesners,[5] uses t hese epit het s for t he pig: dirt lover, beast ly, milk-sucker, unclean,
miry, fat , moist , greedy, loud. And t here is depression in t he pig; along wit h t he dog and ass, t he
pig was a medieval emblem of acedia: laziness, slot h, inert ia, t he absence of spirit . Each
species present s specific st yles of pat hologizings. Wallowing in an obese pig depression
appears alt oget her different from doggedly chasing your own t ail, gnawing buried bones, or
lying in t he dust wit h a hound-dog sorrow. The absence of spirit in t he pig has it s source in it s
associat ion wit h t he element s of eart h and wat er. It s healing powers concerned mainly it s
bladder and fluids (milk, blood, lard, even urine), rest oring life t o old breast s and dried skin,
curing t he cough of horses and old men. Of course, t he moist and muddy element is
t radit ionally feminine, and according t o animal lore, t he sows brain shrinks more t han t hat of
all creat ures wit h t he waning of t he moon. The pigs brain submit s t o t he lunar t ug and it s
rhyt hms in t he flesh. Pigheadedness serves principles deeper t han mere egocent ric obst inacy.
The sow will not receive t he male, says pig lore, unless he first bend her ear, so keenly is t his
ear t uned t o nat ure.
The abhorrence of swine, dogmat ized by Levit icus 11:7, t raveled wit h t he fait hful t hrough all
t he monot heist ic lands of Islam so t hat swine were milit ant ly execut ed from t he shores of t he
At lant ic all across t o Indonesia. Even in Europe t he devil was fond of appearing in pig shape;
wit ches, t oo, rode t hem. Hogs dest ined for slaught er had first t o be inspect ed by t he local
exorcist , following Mark 5:12 where Jesus drives devils int o pigs.
Pig-loat hing is even more ancient : Art emidorus ( Oneirocritica, 1.70) writ es t hat pork is an
auspicious dream symbol, because while t he pig is alive, it is of no use what soever But once
it is dead, it is more savory t han t he ot her animals who are, in t urn, more useful while t hey are
alive
A bit of Islamic lore, from t he Nuzhat-Al-Qulb (Delight of Heart s),[6] a scient ific
encyclopedia composed around 1300) says t hat t he sick pig is cured by a diet of crabs.
The curing of one animal by anot her bears by a diet of ant s; lions by a diet of apes
t radit ionally t eaches psychological insight s. Why would eat ing crab cure t he pig? The cure
must be homeopat hic (like cures like) for t he crab, t oo, is symbolically lunar, moist , and ant i-
heroic: Baldur dies when t he sun ent ers Cancer; Hercules is impeded at Lerna by a crab seizing
his foot , t hus impelling t he hero t o re-double his leonine force. The ast rological Crab arrives at
t he summer solst ice when t he sun st ands st ill aft er it s upward climb, a moment of wat ery
dept hs and reflect ion before t he hot dominion of Leo. It s ast ro-anat omical place are t he
breast s and t he st omach, quit e like t he pig. Bot h are delicat e, succulent , fat t y foods. Jungs
prolonged example of int erpret at ion,[7] in which he demonst rat es his psychology of dreams,
rest s upon t he crab as it s cent ral figure. Jung t akes t he crab as t he regressive libido, drawing
t he pat ient int o t he unconsciousness of a clut ching old at t achment , which in t he case exposed
was synonymous wit h cancer fears. The crab, says Jung, walks backwards.
Yet it cures t he sick pig. Besides t he general idea of renewal associat ed wit h t he crab since
Arist ot le and st at ed by Art emidorus ( Oneirocritica, 2.14) t hat sea creat ures who slough off
t heir old shells are a good sign for t hose who are sick, t here is a more int imat e part icular
relat ion bet ween crab and pig. If t he pig devours, t he crab digest s; if t he pig uproot s and lays
bare, t he crab t ears apart , bit by bit , daint y, careful. What is obst inacy in t he pig is clinging
t enacit y in t he crab. (A crabs claw can grip t hirt y t imes it s body weight , a human hand but t wo-
t hirds of it s weight . The giant Japanese spider crab has an out st ret ched claw span ext ending
t o t hree met ers.) The crab is a scavenger; it consumes carrion: digest ion of t he dead, t he past ,
remembering. The pig goes forward, t he carnal appet it e for more. The boar charges; t he crab
moves off sideways, wit hdraws, backs out of t he skelet on it inhabit s. Walking backwards also
expresses t he bending backwards of reflect ion, t he psychic act ivit y par excellence, [8] and so
t he crab was familiarly paired wit h t he but t erfly in Renaissance emblems t hat juxt apose
ext reme differences of a secret similarit y.[9] The regressive libido t hat Jung sees in t he crab
can also be imagined as t he st omach libido, which goes beyond fressen, snout and oralit y, t o
pepsis in concealment . For, above all else, crabs know t he art of hiddenness, while t he pig is so
fully, unavoidably t here. (The const ellat ion Cancer is almost indiscernibly faint , composed of
only fourt h-magnit ude st ars.[10]) Crabs hide: inside t heir own carapaces, no neck t o st ick out ;
in sand, by burrowing st raight down; in borrowed shells, by closing t rap doors; in t he deep sea,
by walking around wit h sponges hooked on t heir backs; in weeds; as a crab t ransferred from a
green-weed aquarium t o one wit h red weeds spends hours removing t he green foliage from it s
shell and piling it s back wit h red ones, re-dressing it self for it s new environment . These silent ,
self-concealing, inward-t urning behaviors int rovert ing, maybe paranoid can cure t he pig
gone sick wit h an excess of it s own piggish nat ure. Like cures like, and what cures t he sickness
of flesh is t hat creat ure t hat part akes of a similar nat ure but wit h an essent ial shade of
difference.
I have been t rying t o evoke by means of amplificat ion t hat flickering light in t he t unnel, t hat
lumen naturalis, t hat black-eyed pig consciousness t hat played such a role in t he Demet er-
Persephone cult of Eleusis. The milk-sucking fecundit y, glut t ony, and porcine revulsions, t he
root ing nose t hat legend says t aught humans t he art of agricult ure, t he flesh t hat t aught t he
art of cooking, and t he gut s t hrough which we learned about our own anat omy suppose a
psychic value leading below t heir gross meanings t o an underworld myst ery of t he flesh, like
t he whole joint s of pork in Celt ic graves for feast s beyond t he grave. Each animal is a
psychopompos, leading human consciousness t o yield it s t heriophobic exclusivit y, rest oring
part icipat ion in t he animal kingdom. The pigs of Demet er-Persephone, t hose myst ical pigs t hat
die in t he lesser myst eries as described by Karl Kernyi,[11] are t he init iat ed t hemselves. (By
perceiving t he pig wit hin t he set t ing of a myst ery, I can give up t o it wit h devot ion. My
recognit ion of t he divinit y in my piggish needs allows it t o yield it s demands.)
The pig init iat es consciousness int o t he subt let ies of grossness: it s exaggerat ed compulsive
physicalit y is t he very drive downward int o t he myst ery of lifes mat erialit y, t he Plut o-Hecat e
world of darkness under t he eart h of Demet er, requiring a dark eye t hat can see t he psychic in
t he concret e, t he subt le body in t he gross obsession, t hat t he suksma aspect is t here in t he
midst of t he shtula, t hat t here is spirit , light , and fire in t he fat .
A dream report ed by an analyst from one of her cases shows t his spirit in t he pig:
I saw a child of four or five, supposedly my youngest son, watching some little pigs with fascinated delight. They
rose on their hind legs in play, and he, with his naked pink body, felt identified with them. He was particularly
interested in their male organs, as they were also. He told them he felt his own as much bigger and stronger than
usual, as big as a thick half sausage he pointed at me. I felt it was time for parental sex instruction, but he was not
interested.
Again a pig arising, but now charm and candor, lit t le boy Eros erect ing, where four could as
well be five, t hat is, at t his moment of Oedipal t ransit ion, t he quaternio is indist inguishable
from t he sensat e st ruct ure of Aphrodit e-lsht ar. Inst ruct ion, init iat ion is const ellat ed, but t he
usual roles are reversed: not she, t he older ego, shall t each t he pig-boy t he usual normalizing
rules, but t he dreamer is being t aught by t he dream it self.
And t hat is t he crucial point t hrough all t hese dreams: t he image is t he t eacher. We have t o
endure a laboriously slow met hod of dreamwork, frust rat ing our hermeneut ic desire in order t o
hear t he image. A dream brings wit h it a t errible urge for underst anding. We want dreams
decoded for t heir meanings. But t he dream, like t he animal in it , is a living phenomenon. It goes
on displaying it self, point ing beyond it self t o ever furt her int eriorit y if we can hold back t he
hermeneut ical desire so t hat t he image can elaborat e it self. If so, t hen does amplificat ion help
t he image, and how?
Amplification
We have been following Jungs met hod of amplificat ion because, as he says, wherever it is a
quest ion of archet ypal format ions, personalist ic at t empt s at explanat ion lead us ast ray, [12]
and we resort t o amplificat ion in t he int erpret at ion of dreams, for a dream is t oo slender a hint
t o be underst ood unt il it is enriched by t he st uff of associat ion and analogy and t hus amplified
t o t he point of int elligibilit y. [13] By est ablishing t he symbolic cont ext t hrough hist orical,
philological, and iconological research we gain an object ive core of meaning of t he dream
animal.
Crit ics of amplificat ion cont end t hat t he met hod fails as an adequat e scient ific procedure on
at least t hese t hree count s. First, t he crit erion of sufficiency cannot be met . By definit ion,
amplifying means enlarging, adding det ails, enriching so when does one achieve sufficient
st uff? Where does one st op? Therefore, second, limit s must be set arbit rarily in t he select ion
of mat erial by t he analyst and pat ient according t o t heir proclivit ies and t he exigencies called
heurist ic. Therefore, third, amplificat ion does not achieve an object ive cont ext in which pig,
say, inheres, nor can it impart ially circumscribe t he connot at ions of pig. Hence amplificat ion
cannot be called a met hod in t he scient ific sense but an anecdot al mode, impart ing allegorical
suggest ions, wisdom, and moralisms. It cannot escape t he charge of subject ivism.
A fourth crit icism comes from anot her direct ion. This is t he imagist crit ique. It charges
amplificat ion wit h failure t o seize t he act ual dream image: t hat lit t le pink boy wit h his sausage-
like erect ion playing wit h piglet s on t heir hind legs. We lose t he image in t he welt er of
amplificat ory evidence. The dream is dissolved in a wider cont ext and defended against by
int ellect ualized knowledge. The import and complexit y of t he dream and it s emot ion is
displaced from t he dream ont o t he excit ing and rich discoveries of amplificat ion. We are led
away from what is t here t o what is not t here t he pig in cont ext s ot her t han t his act ual
dream.
For t he imagist t he dream has an inherent overdet erminat ion. It is st uffed wit h it s own
grounds for archet ypal significance. There can be no improvement on t he dream or basis for
t he dream beyond t he dream. The image has all it needs: pink, penis, body, nude, sausage,
piglet , delight , felt , erect , upright , rose, play What could more amplify t he image t han t his
coalescence, t his layered densit y ( Dichte) t hat makes each dream also a fict ion ( Dichtung)?
When archet ypal psychology urges t he maxim st ick t o t he image (following Jung who
writ es, To underst and t he dreams meaning I must st ick as close as possible t o t he dream
images [14]), it is saying t hat associat ions and amplificat ions can do lit t le more t han t he image
has already done; associat ions and amplificat ions become subst it ut es for t he dream it self.
Whereas t he dream, if st ayed wit h, worked wit h, will release it s archet ypal implicat ions of
delight in t he flesh, arousal as arising, erect ion as point ing, aiming, even inst ruct ing, and t he
sophist icat ion of flesh int o sausage all of which suggest ing an opus, an init iat ory
t ransformat ion of phallic consciousness.
Furt hermore, says t he imagist crit ique, wit h t he solidificat ion of t his met hod by t he Jungian
school during t he past sevent y years, t he pig in a dream no longer points as Jung said a
symbol should, no longer opens int o somet hing unknown and of which it is t he best possible
expression. Inst ead, t he pig now represents. It is a symbol of. So, when t he woman st ares int o
t he sows head, a t rained analyst knows t he pat ient is st aring int o t he black eye of t he t errible
mot her, as John Layard [15] calls t he pig. Pig-Isis is arising, and t he woman is meet ing her
materia prima, a t riumph of t he below oft en graphically lit eralized as below t he belt . She is
confront ing t he Archet ypal Feminine (Erich Neumann [16]), t he shadow side of feminine
nat ure and now will be coming t o t erms wit h t he flesh as evil (malice), t he devil in t he swine, t he
wit ch all represent ed by t he pig.
I do believe t he crit iques can be answered, including t he imagist s. But t o find t he value of
amplificat ion we have t o move t he met hod from it s base in what we might call t he scient ific
fallacy, t he idea t hat amplificat ion of psychological mat erial is comparable wit h met hods used
in hist orical scholarship or archeology. Jung, who in his yout h want ed t o become an
archeologist , oft en couples t he t erm amplificat ion wit h t he adject ive hist orical. [17] The
met hod, however, is it self part ly det ermined by it s own hist orical cont ext t he early years of
t his cent ury and t he parallel disciplines of ant hropology, archeology, and philology: Frazer,
Cook, Harrison, Lvy-Bruhl, Radcliff-Brown, Mauss. Amplificat ion served t he scient ific claim of
t he universalit y of t he archet ypes and t he collect ive unconscious.
By uneart hing or assembling pig images, rit uals, and et ymologies, an object ive meaning of
pig would emerge pig as symbol of t he fecundat ing, t elluric Mot her Archet ype, and t his
reductio in primam figuram, t his singleness of meaning, served t o account for all variet ies of
t he figure. The demonic pig (it s cloven hoof and diet ary t aboo) in severe monot heist ic cult ures,
as well as t he pig of ignorance ( avidya), could be account ed for by reject ion of t he Eart h
Mot her, while t he t usked boar belonging t o Ares or Vishnu could be account ed for by Neumann
and Layard as expressions of t he same negat ive mot her, t usked as phallic, whom t he Hero, like
Odysseus, must meet as init iat ion and again overcome as a regressive enchant ment t oward
primit ive phallicism in t he anima figure of Circe as t he Hero proceeds away from t he pig in t he
heroic course of developing consciousness.[18]
Singleness of meaning is, of course, just what amplificat ion was int ended by Jung t o
preclude. Yet t he scient ific fallacy is forced by it s logic t o ascribe a unified meaning t o t he
figure. If a pig is winged, plays t he flut e, dances a jig, is carved int o a church pew wit h a
psalmbook, if it is a sun-god (Scandinavia), t he highest and last zodiacal sign in t he Far East ,
modeled wit h it s t orso dot t ed wit h st ars, as found at Troy, or if it is naive, t ender, fearful or jolly,
and so at t uned in hearing t hat Welsh Druids, who knew t he language of birds for t heir divining,
gained t heir foreknowledge of t imes from t heir pig companion,[19] or if animal psychologist s
t oday show t he pig more int elligent t han t he horse, perhaps equal t o t he elephant ,[20] and so
perhaps one of t he first animals t o be domest icat ed [21] t hese ot her spirit ed and sensit ive
implicat ions fall out from t he unified core of symbolic pig as eart h mot her, whet her negat ive or
posit ive. The arbit rariness of t he met hod, however, belongs not t o t he Handhabung (handling),
t he heurist ic way it is used, so much as t o t he scient ific fallacy on which it is based.
If we ret ain t he met hod and discard it s scient ific claim, t hen se-lect ion will not at t empt an
object ive core of meaning, nor will t he select ion process derive from a set of t acit rules: cult ural
t hemat ics before personal associat ions, imaginat ive t ext s before scient ific t ext s, religious
before secular, archaic before modern, folk cult ure before high cult ure, et ymological before
phonet ic, West ern before East ern; all of which can be summed up in t he principle: choose
always wider and older mat erials.
Inst ead, we would follow Jungs idea of t he heurist ic: select ing from t he dat a what works,
what has Wirkung (effect ). Heurist ic is an idea t aken from t he healing art s; it is an art ist ic
principle requiring an aest het ic economy t o det ermine which few st rokes evoke t he essence
most poignant ly, going t o t he heart so as t o amplify, ext end, unfold an effect . The aim is t o
make t he dream image display it s full plier implicat ions, complicat ions not st uff it full or
smot her it wit h evidence: an imagist ic sense of amplificat ion rat her t han a dat a sense.
Because t his essent ial economical st roke is a skill t hat requires cult ural symbolic knowledge,
fit t ingness is not fort uit ous. We dont pull any-old-t hing from t he grab bag of symbols but
select wit h a view t o moving t he soul by speaking symbolically wit h it s images. Symbols are not
t hings so much as rhet orical agent s, ways of persuading images t oward t heir fuller scope and
dept h. They are like alchemical agent s. They cat alyze, dissolve, t inct ure t he dream images,
act ivat ing t heir Wirkung.
This offers an opport unit y t o make clear how I employ amplificat ion and why I do so. First ,
amplificat ion improves skill by providing knowledge, and, as I remember Karl Kernyi saying t o
me once aft er I was complaining about a boring, t hough learned, lect ure, aber das Wissen
schadet nicht s (but knowledge does not harm). Knowledge is the t echnique of Jungian
pract ice. For all t he similarit ies in clinical t raining and t herapeut ic procedures, Jungians differ
from ot her schools in one crucial aspect : knowledge of t he archet ypal imaginat ion, t he
t radit ional deposit of symbol and rit ual in art , cult ure, and religion. The grids from which
Jungians work wit h t he dream are pat t erns and mat erials like t he dream, drawn from t he
t hemat ics of t he imaginat ion. Jungians assume t hese pat t erns are t he formal causes of
psychic event s and t hat t he mat erials are t he cont ent s of psychic event s, and t hat knowledge
of t hem reveals t he telos, t he purposefulness, in t he event s. In Jungian psychology, knowledge
of efficient causes current ly called psychodynamic explanat ions t akes a much lesser role.
Symbolical knowledge can of course lose it s life, becoming rout ine formalisms,
int ellect ualized mat erials, and prescribed goals. This frequent ly occurs wit h any knowledge; but
merely because of t he shadow of knowledge we should not forego knowledge it self.
Second, amplificat ion presumes a cosmology. The pig or crab in a dream reaches across
cent uries and geographies because it is a visible presence of archaic and ubiquit ous invisible
processes. The symbolic pig is also an et ernal, pleromat ic pig full of all pigs everywhere, a
cosmic pig t here before I am here, dreaming before t he dreamer. In t hat visible dream image are
knit t ed t oget her t he pigs of Melanesia, t he pig Aphrodit e does not like because it killed Adonis,
and my next Wurstsalat. So, a dream pig can no longer be a part of me only: as my laziness or
deject ion over my corpulence or as obscene compensat ion for a life-disdaining prissiness. The
cosmic pig spills over t he frames I put it in; it s pleroma requires t hat every amplificat ion seem
t oo full. The cosmic pig can never fit int o t he fant asy of a personal privat e psychology. It s very
appearance breaks such bounds and amplificat ion is t he adequat e met hodological response
t o t his cosmic amplit ude.
So, t hird, amplificat ion is a therapy. By infusing t he cosmic int o t he personal and releasing
t he personal int o t he cosmic, t he met hod is a re-ligio, a re-linking, re-membering. I revive
t radit ion as I recognize t hat I am in relat ion wit h t he pig enact ing what went on, for
inst ance, in Levit icus, and what is st at ed in t he Bible about pigs cont inues t o be st at ed in t he
soul in my dreams. As t hese myt hs revive in me t hrough t he pig, t he pig is rest ored t o it s role
as a daimonic being, an int ercessor, it self a methodos or pat h of tawil out of t he egocent ric
secular worldview.
Fourt h, amplificat ion is it self a ritual, serving t he image, much as if one would carve t he pig in
wood, paint piglet s, or ceremonially slaught er, but cher, and roast it . Amplificat ion brings out our
hands and minds t o t he image: we offer t ime t o it ; we respond t o it s coming wit h grat it ude. Our
amplificat ions are a heaping up of offerings t o it , dulia not only t hat we may know it bet t er
but for it s sake, t hat it be honored and at t ended.
Eagle
To show t he power of amplificat ion for giving t he dream an immediat ely recognizable topos,
let s begin wit h t he amplificat ion, t hen t he dreams.
All birds, what ever t heir species, according t o t he best iary books, are t wice-born: once as an
egg from t he mot her, and t hen born again from t he egg. A bird brings t he element of air,
orient at ion from above. As Philo said, birds are messengers of God t o st rip us of mat erial
embroilment s; t hey present t he intellectus agens, t he higher act ive mind t hat descends int o
t he human sphere but is not born of it , which implies t hat t he higher mind is an animal, t hat
ideas and int uit ions are winged bodies wit h quick-beat ing heart s t hat can st rike us wit h claws
and t earing beaks. The vernacular associat ion of birds wit h sexual organs and behaviors
recognizes t hat t he intellectus agens comes also in t hose singing, soaring excit ement s of
sexual desire. The bird is like t he physical force of t he met aphysical.
Of t he birds, t he eagle is king and it appears as emblem of kings and kingdoms. At t he
cremat ion of a Roman Emperor, an eagle was released near t he funeral pyre t o conduct t he
imperial soul t o t he heavens. Only t he eagle, it is said, can look direct ly int o t he sun, as Moses
int o t he face of God, and only t he eagle cannot be killed by light ning. The aged eagle renews
it self by flying int o t he sun unt il it s feat hers become incandescent fire, and t hen, diving int o
wat er, it emerges young again. So Christ is t his resurrect ed bright ness, and t he Logos t hat
enlight ens is an eagle like John t he Evangelist who, in exile on Pat mos, was t aken up t o
heaven for his apocalypt ic visions. Or, as t he flight from Egypt , t he Exodus, was accomplished
on eagles wings t he uplift ing, inflat ing power of spirit over mat erial ent rapment .
The eagle soon waxet h angry wit h spirit ual arrogance because it s t emperament is
exceedingly hot and dry. There is milit ancy, even violence,[22] in it s mission, for t he eagle is
always at war wit h lesser birds and creeping creat ures: especially t he dove daquila non
nasce colomba. [23] Might y, bat t le-mad Ajax t akes his name from t he eagle ( aietos). It seizes
t he fright ened hare, t he milky calf, t he bleat ing lamb, t he abandoned child; t hese weaklings fall
prey t o t he seduct ion of a great grasp. Any beaut iful boy like Ganymede can be carried away
by t he ascending impet us. Power. Knowledge. To wing among t he light ning flashes unt ouched,
forever, no more falls. Each day, an eagle t ears at t he liver of Promet heus, eat ing int o t he
passionat e organic soul of ira and concupiscentia, t he Promet hean drive consumed by it s day-
world ambit ions.
As Emperor, spirit , logos, immort al, t he shadow of t he eagle is t he senex, aquilae senectus,
so t here is much in eagle lore about renewal and aging.[24] It is said t o die because of t he
increasing incurvat ure of it s beak so t hat it eit her can no longer t ake food and st arves or
punct ures it s own t hroat .
We are able t o expect t hat a dream showing movement in t he eagle soul is of imperial,
imperat ive force, bearing a large message, a collect ive mission. We can furt her ant icipat e
upward-sweeping, inflat ing consequences and t hat somet hing weak and exposed has been
t he bait . It might indicat e t he awakening of t he intellectus agens as Logos in our cult ure and as
a shamanist ic init iat ion in archaic cult ures.[25]
A woman dreams t hat she is going up t he st eps of t he New York Public Library, when an
eagle from t owering height dives down on her, and she shields herself in t error. The dream
st ayed wit h her for years. This person, at t he t ime of t he dream, was a fat hers daught er and
shelt ered wife ent rapped in t he Egypt of her mat erial securit y from which she slowly began an
ambit ious Exodus by means of furt her educat ion and profession.
Anot her woman dreams:
I am standing in our kitchen brushing my hair with my daughters hairbrush before the mirror. With each brush a
large amount of hair is pulled out. I realize my hair has holes, open spots, in it. I wonder if it will grow in again. I go
on to a party and mention to several people about my hair having holes in it. I ask if they think it will grow in again.
They say no. But each time I put my hand up to the holes, I feel small tight white feathers like the cap on an eagles
head. It feels lovely and I enjoy having this secret.
In t he kit chen, by t he mirror, mot her-daught er, loss of hair a concat enat ion of familiar
t ransformat ional mot ifs. In addit ion, here, t he whit e eagle-feat hered cap, appearing in t he
absence of her own nat ural hair, in t he lacunae, t he open spot s of her head. Eagle-power
emerges head-t o-head and wit h it comes a paranoid pot ent ial: enjoying t he loveliness of
having t his privat e secret in t he midst of t he part y, and despit e what ot hers say.
A younger man dreams:
I am standing in the galley of the fishing boat on which I work. With me are the four other crew men and the captain
around the table. I am becoming aware that there is a different animal associated with each of the five that they hold
or have at their sides. What animals they are is obscure since the men and the animals are hidden in the shadows.
In addition, I am spellbound at the appearance in the center of the air of a blindingly bright and luminous form, that of
a snow-white eagle whose feathers are covered with midnight-blue stars and crescents. In awe I think the eagle
wears the devices on the cloak of a wizard. The eagle alights upon me and spreads its wings. Gradually I become
aware of nothing else but this royal creature, which continues to spark lightning from its form and grow ever brighter.
I reflect this animal will bring good luck in fishing.
Because of our previous amplificat ion of t he eagle, we should not be surprised by t he words in
t he dream: blindingly bright, white, blue, luminous, center of the air, royal, lightning, awe, or by
t he repet it ion of t he Logos words I think, form, reflect, become aware. Not ice t he cont rast
bet ween t he gradual dominion of t he eagle and t he fading of t he ot her men and t heir
companion animals. Not ice, t oo, how t he mot if of bright /obscure (hidden, shadow) is absorbed
by t he eagle who incorporat es t he midnight int o it s wizard-like form. As t he royal blinding
grows bright er, I become aware of not hing else. This is t he spellbinding effect of t he eagle
spreading it s wings upon him. As Jung says, t he archet ype of t he spirit is bot h wisdom and
wizard, benefact or and sorcerer.[26] The effect is similar t o t he paranoid possibilit ies of t he
eagle-coverings on t he womans head. Bot h dreamers become privat ely cent ered.
The raptus effect of t he eagle, by which I mean t he ident ificat ion wit h it s vision, comes out in
t his dream of an elderly man:
I am in a landscape bordered by mountains. Birds in the sky. Two eagles. Enormous, with a wingspan of some 30
to 50 meters. I can hear the swish of their formidable wings beating as they gyrate around in some kind of love play.
The spectacle is awe-inspiring. Nearby is a fishpond. Dark fish in it. Suddenly I realize that on my left, as if hidden in
a grotto just underneath the shore, is an enormous fish. It is black and facing the open water. A man connected with
the place remarks that it is, or is not, dangerous. On waking, I was a bit scared The fish was dangerous. Maybe the
eagles will catch the fish.
Here, as in t he fishing-boat dream, light and darkness, sky and wat er, eagle and fish belong in
t he same image. In bot h dreams t he dreamer expect s t he eagle t o cat ch t he fish, envisioning
t hem as opposed. The black fish in t he grot t o is imagined in t erms of danger (t he eagle in
t erms of awe). His ident ificat ion is wit h eagle power, as if he has already been carried t o it s
place in t he sky. Amplificat ion can prepare us for t hese event ualit ies.
Giraffe
Concerning t he giraffe, t here is lit t le of t he usual lore t o consult for amplificat ion. Neit her
physiologoi, nor fairy t ales, nor myt hs elaborat e giraffes. It is not a familiar t emple animal in
Egypt , even if depict ed, nor should it be confused wit h t he fabulous ki-lin of China or t he
zamar of t he Bible, t hough it is somet imes ident ified wit h bot h. Nor is t here any represent at ion
of t he giraffe in classical Greek art , for it is described only in lat er Hellenist ic writ ings.
But t here are giraffes in dreams. A young woman of high fashionable societ y, wit h anorexic
t rait s, had t wo giraffe dreams. Anot her young woman dreams of coming down t he Zrichberg
in a small t rain wit h a giraffe beside her, but t here is danger because it s neck st icks up so high
t hat it will collide wit h overhead wires and bridges. She wakes up anxious t hat t he giraffe will
get it s head severed unless t he t rain st ops it s descent . A t hird dream, report ed indirect ly, was
from a mot her, supposedly frigid, whose main concern was t he sexual moralit y of her daught er:
t hat she might get sullied.
Since we do not have t he usual kinds of sources for amplificat ion of t he giraffe, we must
open anot her avenue: cult ural hist ory. Giraffes belong in t he cult ural milieu of t he court s; t hey
were t he delight of princes who present ed t hem t o one anot her as noble ost ent at ious gift s in
Turkey, Egypt , Persia, Rome, and Renaissance It aly. Anne de Beaujeu, daught er of Louis XI,
longed for a giraffe above all ot her animals and begged one from Lorenzo di Medici. The word
geraph, seraph, from Arabic, supposedly means t he lovely one, and it was hunt ed and t raded
neit her for it s meat , nor for sport , but for it s beaut y, t he coat , t he long eyelashes and brush-like
t ail, it s long dark t ongue, t he peculiar fluid lope, it s silent , docile and elegant manner. It was
eulogized by Renaissance poet s; Poliziano saw in t he giraffe t he image of t he cult ured and
int elligent man. Only in 1827 did t he first giraffe arrive in Nort hern Europe, having been walked
all t he way up t o Paris from Marseilles, causing ext raordinary delight en rout e.
Depict ions of t he giraffe from African rocks t hrough Persian manuscript s t o eight eent h-
cent ury European drawings show a common anat omical mispercept ion: t he whole t orso of t he
animal is drawn sloping upwards. The act ual animal has a horizont al belly; nonet heless, t he
depict ed image ascends, for t his is t he animal whose head is fart hest from it s body, it s body
fart hest from t he ground. To ground it s head is ungainly. It s head is nat urally in t he t rees,
above it all, aloof, demeanor exaggerat edly vert ical as t he nat uralist Wolfgang Schad
says.[27] According t o Heini Hediger,[28] it s body has remarkably few sebaceous [fat t y]
glands (our anorexic dreamer?), and according t o Adolf Port mann,[29] t he giraffe has t he
highest development of it s nervous cent er [ cerebrum] of all cloven-hoofed animals. Also, it
lacks any t race of t hat usual indicat ion of aggression: upper canine t eet h. Moreover, t he
mot hering inst inct , for which we t urn t o mammals as exemplars, in t he giraffe is not so sure
at least as far as observed in capt ivit y. Hedigers prot ocol of t he first birt h by a mot her giraffe in
t he Basle Zoo report s t hat t he mot her feared t he baby, ignored it , and t rampled it so t hat t he
calf had t o be reared by humans.[30]
An Arab dream book by Al-Damiri st at es t hat a giraffe may signify a wort hy or beaut iful
woman, and it may somet imes indicat e a wife unfait hful t o her husband. It augurs financial
calamit y, or calamit y t o your propert y, and t here is no guarant ee for t he safet y of a person
whom you may want t o t ake t o your homest ead.
These warnings make sense in view of t he dist ance of t he giraffe from t he common ground,
it s flight y defenselessness, and it s beaut y. In psychology, we might be speaking of t he
aest het ic anima a docile, gent le, virginal qualit y of graceful awkwardness and height ened
sensit ivit y, yet which has a killing kick if approached wrongly or t oo closely. A mot her who is
herself frigid fears t hat her daught er will become sullied, t hereby losing t heir common giraffe
t ot em. And t he dream of t he Zrichberg t rain t ells t he predicament of t he giraffe: how t o come
down wit hout having t o cut off t he head, which cannot negot iat e t he horizont al lines of
communicat ions and bridgings t hat run at cross purposes t o t hat exaggerat ed vert icalit y.
First Conclusions
These amplificat ions have drawn upon t hree int ert wined sources of t ellings about t he
animals: classical symbolism (including lore, fable, et c.), et hnology or ant hropology, and cult ural
hist ory in short , mythos. We have t urned t o t he Geisteswissenschaften for t he appearance
of t he animal in imaginat ive cont ext s. You will have not iced, however, t hat I have been slipping
in a fourt h source nat ural hist ory, ext ending amplificat ion in a direct ion deriving from Adolf
Port mann. The classical Jungian met hod uses t ext ual sources: t he symbolic pig rat her t han t he
pig of animal husbandry, laborat ory psychology, zoology. The t radit ion of Jungian met hod has
followed t he t radit ional division of t wo kinds of comprehension: humanist ic underst anding and
empirical observat ion.
Following Port mann, however, t he pig reveals it self t o t he observing senses as a behavioral,
aest het ic phenomenon in short , nat ure, and not only as a philological, symbolical, t ext ual one.
Selbstdarstellung of t he physical pig is anot her cont ext of manifest at ion. Since each animal is
a living form, as Port mann says, it expresses it self. All animals speak. They speak as
met aphorically t o t he observat ional imaginat ion as t o t he symbolic.
Consider t he self-display of t he pig, t he crab, t he giraffe. The giraffes orange-and-whit e
ret iculat ed coat offers a gorgeous out ward show. This coat , as zoologist s have not ed, does
not conceal or camouflage which is anyway a paranoid milit arist ic t erm originat ing in 1917
and misapplied t o ecological conformit y but gives height ened visibilit y for communicat ion at
great dist ances. Giraffes must be seen; t hey do not call t o each ot her. The pigs coat is it s very
t orso, as if it were naked. St uffed as sausage, compact as ham, it present s it self as flesh, meat .
Loud, bulky, it goes aft er root s, while t he giraffe ext ends int o ext remit ies and upwards wit h t he
t rees int o t he air. (Taxonomy places giraffe and pig in t he same large group of art iodact yla, or
event oed ungulat es.)
Unlike eit her, t he crab conceals it s t ender sweet ness wholly wit hin: who would guess t he
delicat e art iculat ed sect ioning of it s int erior from t he spiny, crust y, barnacle-covered,
pugnacious ext ernal display. To know t he crab, one must go int o it , t hrough it s hidings and
disguises in hard-shelled coverings, a body armor it sheds only during moment s of mat ing.
Compare t heir mot ions: t he dist ancing of t he giraffe by means of a singular galloping gait ; t he
grounding of t he pig wit h it s short t rot t ing; t he scut t ling of t he crab, expressive of sidest epping.
Compare t heir necks: t he giraffes, as if t o hold head and t orso apart , det ached; t he pigs, as if
t o keep t hem confluent ; and t he neckless crab whose head is in it s body.
Or, ret urn t o t he polar bear, hearing t his report from Wolfgang Schad:
Mating takes place towards the end of the polar night, at the end of March or beginning of April. The development of
the embryo, however, is arrested until the end of October Just at the onset of winter embryonic development
resumes; in the midst of the most extreme cold, in January, deep within the snow caves over which arctic storms
are raging, the tiny, naked, warmth-requiring young enter the world almost as embryos. Here causal arid
teleological explanations break down. But the essential character of the bears is expressed all the more clearly
the complete independence of their strongly metabolic nature. In space as in time, these large carnivores withdraw
from the surrounding world and time of year surviving purely on the strength of their metabolism.[31]
That inner heat , independent of space and t ime, can wit hst and t he dark night of t he cold. The
t apas of t he shaman, wit hdrawn from t he surrounding world, t he opus contra naturam, is
given wit h t heir nat ure.
I am suggest ing t hat we read t he animal and not only about t he animal. I am suggest ing t hat
t he dream animal can be amplified as much by a visit t o t he zoo as by a symbol dict ionary, and
I am suggest ing t hat we dream int erpret ers not reduce t he dream t o t he symbol but reduce
ourselves, our own vision, t o t hat of t he animal a reduct ion t hat may be an ext ension, an
amplificat ion, of our vision so as t o see t he animal wit h an animal eye.
What does t he animal recognize when it comes upon anot her animal? Wit hout benefit of a
best iary, it s t ext is t he living form. The reading of living form, t he self-expressive met aphors
t hat animals present , is what is meant by t he legends t hat saint s and shamans underst and
t he language of animals, not in t he lit eral speech of words, as much as psychically, animal soul
t o animal image, speaking wit h animals as t hey come in dreams.
To read t he animal, t o hear it speak, requires an aest het ic and ecological percept ion for
which psychology has yet t o t rain it s eye and find words t hat are not just allegorical moralisms,
beyond met aphors of piggishness, mousiness, monkey t ricks and bear hugs, beyond simplist ic
met aphor alt oget her, beyond grasping at t he meaning of t he animal; t o t hat aest het ic
appercept ion of what is present ed, responding t o t he significance of it s form, an appropriat e,
appreciat ive response, grat eful t hat it is even t here, t hat it has come t o t he dream, and t hat
t his visit at ion is a moment ary rest orat ion of Eden. For t hat short et ernal while, and aft erwards
in variet ies of recollect ion, t here is in t he dream of images, an original co-presence of human
and animal, and when we are present t o t he animal, Adam is t here and Eve, and we are in t he
Garden from which t he animals were never reject ed.
Dare we add one more Midrash t o t hat Garden? It is not merely a nost algia for unfallen
paradise, immersion in innocence or lawless animalit y. The Garden is a myt hical nat ure, t he
topos where t hings nat ural are also myt hical and myt h is present ed as nat ure, where t he
animal and t he name of t he animal, nat ural pig and symbolic pig, cannot be fallen apart ,
rupt ured, where each creat ure is sust ained by t he myt hos of it s nat ure, obedient t o t he lawful
discipline of each according t o it s kind.
Animal Names
We need now t o raise a quest ion t hat should lead us more deeply int o t he nat ure of t he animal
in t he dream. Why segregat e dreams according t o convent ional species: pig dreams, eagle
dreams, and so on? Why t hese rubrics? What is t he fant asy in t he met hod?
Clearly, t he animal name as rubric places t he dream wit hin t he best iary t radit ion going back
t o Arist ot le and Pliny and cont inuing t o t his day, where t axonomy follows t he commonly
recognizable forms of t he animals t heir appearances. The name bespeaks an image a
complexit y of habit s, present at ion, st yle by means of which each animal reveals it s kind.
Noah, t oo, ent ered t he animals int o t he ark according t o t heir kinds, and t his is how t hey
appeared t o Adam, as species each a morphological present at ion.
Pig, Crab, Eagle assert t hat each animal kind is a recognizable essence, a concret e and
visible universal, always t he same. As such, t hese rubrics give essent ialit y t o t he dream, and as
subst ant ives, t hey give subst ance and power, like t ot emic aut horit y t o t he dream as an
ent iret y. Indeed, it is a pig dream, not a t unnel dream, because each animal name evokes t he
animal presence as t he daimon in whose name t he dream shall be t old. Oft en, in pract ice, a
dream is act ually t it led by t he dreamer aft er t he animal which is unusual for a car dream, a
flying dream, a sexual dream. These may be more common and more emot ional, yet t he credit
of t he t it le is given t o t he animal. And I do admit t o t aking t he animal in t he dream unvaryingly
as it s most significant element because it is t he place where t he psyche opens int o beings of
myst ery and beaut y who are creat ures as we are and yet remain ot her. The animal is t hat
st range ot her I wish most t o evoke during t he analyt ical hour and from which, or whom, I hope
furt her imaginat ion will act ively init iat e.
To explore and t o just ify t his sense of subst ance and power in t he dream animal, t o come t o
t erms wit h t his ot herness, is our remaining t ask. First , however, we must recall in broad lines
t he modes of degradat ion of t he animal kingdom t hat are st ill operat ive in t he response of t he
int erpret er t o t he dream and in t he response of t he dreamer in t he dream.
Modes of Degradation
The many difficult ies of t he dream-I wit h t he animal in dreams perceiving t he animal as
dangerous, fearing it s bit e, pursuit by it , invasion by many of t hem definit ely correspond wit h
t he dreamers devaluat ion of t he animal in t he dream t he desire t o avoid, t o cont rol or t o
eradicat e it , or in t he dreamers mispercept ion (t hat familiar lit t le phrase, I t hought ) of t he
animal and it s int ent ions. The st rained relat ion bet ween human and animal in cont emporary
dreams recapit ulat es t he West ern t radit ion and it s degradat ion of t he animal.
The West ern t radit ion regarding animals consist s of four main st rands: Hebrew, Greek,
Roman (St oic), and Christ ian each of which composed of lesser t hreads reflect ing different
writ ers, economies, laws, and cult s. The Bible places t he animals in t he original Garden and
singles t hem out for salvat ion from t he Flood. Diet ary laws show a careful discriminat ion among
animals, such as we find in Greek nat ural science, e.g., Arist ot les biological writ ings. Even if t he
animal is decidedly delivered int o human hands (Genesis 1:28, 9:2), Proverbs 12:10 says, A
right eous man has regard for t he life of his beast And Ecclesiast es 13 says, t hat which
befallet h t he sons of men befallet h beast s as one diet h, so diet h t he ot her, yea, t hey all
have one breat h [ nepesh, soul]; so t hat a man hat h no preeminence over a beast . A long
Greek t radit ion from Pyt hagoras t hrough Plut arch and Porphyry also holds man and beast
close t oget her, and supposedly one of t he t hree moral precept s of Eleusis was do not be cruel
t o animals.
This Hebrew and Greek regard, however, seems not t o have been t he principal influence in
lat er West ern at t it udes. In t he main, Greek religious feeling expressed in t he animal forms of
t he gods was followed by t he Roman st at e cult of pomp, pageant , and cruelt y. Despit e Plinys
not ion t hat animals are more dear t o God t han man, Lucret iuss belief t hat animals are happier
and higher t han man, and t he popularit y of Virgils t hird Georgic, Roman law gave t he owners
of animals ius utendi and ius abutendi, a posit ion support ed by t he St oic idea of reason of
which animals were deprived.
As Greek gave way t o Roman, and Hebrew t o Christ ian, Ecclesiast es is nowhere ment ioned
in t he New Test ament . Where some Greek Fat hers (Origen, Clement , Basil t he Great ) can be
read t o show profound sympat het ic connect ion bet ween man and t he best ial soul, ot hers
(Gregory of Nyssa) at t ribut ed t he Fall t o one source: t he animal mode of generat ion or best ial
sexualit y. The Serpent , aft er all, was an animal.
The main Christ ian line derives from t he New Test ament it self. August ine writ es,
Christ Himself shows that to refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of plants is the height of
superstition because, judging that there are no common rights between us and the beasts and the trees, he sent
devils into a herd of swine and with a curse withered the tree on which he found no fruit. Surely, the swine had not
sinned nor had the tree.[32]
By sending t he devils int o t he swine, Christ , according t o August ine, made perfect ly clear t hat
animals were ut t erly beyond human concern.[33] Aquinass mode of degradat ion follows more
t he St oic direct ion: animals have no reason; t herefore, t hey have been complet ely delivered
int o our hands. When St . Paul says t hat God hat h no care for oxen, Thomas int erpret s t his t o
mean t hat he does not judge a man on how he has act ed wit h regard t o oxen or ot her
animals. Thomas does not e t he Biblical injunct ions t o t reat t he animal well, but t hese, he
argues, were necessary because t he Jews were given t o cruelt y! Injunct ions against cruelt y t o
animals are because such cruelt y makes t he human perpet rat or cruel or callous t o ot her
humans. The concern is not for t he animal.[34]
Kant cont inues t he rat ionalist mode of degradat ion. Animals are not self-conscious and are
t here merely as a means t o an end. [35] Like Aquinas, he point s out t hat kindness t oward
animals will develop humane feelings t oward mankind. Again, t he concern is not for t he animal.
My point ought now become horribly clear from t his passage from a sermon by Cardinal
Newman:
We, in our turn, have no duties toward the brute creation; there is no relation of justice between them and us They
can claim nothing at our hands; into our hands they are absolutely delivered. We may use them, we may destroy
them at our pleasure, not our wanton pleasure, but still for our own ends, for our own benefit or satisfaction,
provided we can give a rational account of what we do.[36]
The moral philosophy of Aquinas, Kant , and Newman did recognize t hat t he animal suffered. It
is a sent ient being if not a rat ional one. Animal nat ure is brut e in regard only t o t he absence of
reason; reason, of course, being t he dist inguishing mark of t he human, sign of t he divine Logos.
For Descart es and Malebranche, however, even t he sensit ive soul is gone. Cruelt y t o animals is
t herefore logically impossible because t hey are incapable of feeling. They eat wit hout
pleasure, t hey cry wit hout sorrow, t hey desire not hing, t hey fear not hing, t hey know not hing,
says Malebranche. They are machines. The Cart esian Jacques Rouhault argued t hat an organ
makes more noise when it is played t han an animal when it cries out , yet we do not ascribe
feelings t o an organ.[37]
Even our diet is Cart esian, or Christ ian, according t o one Japanese cult ural analyst : only in
West ern societ ies can meat play such a prominent diet ary role because only here does t he
ont ic dist inct ion bet ween man and beast allow it t o be delivered int o mans hand, an ont ic
dist inct ion t hat is rit ually commemorat ed t hree t imes a day.[38] Like one of t he fait hful facing
East , our fait h in human superiorit y is confirmed wit h bacon at breakfast , at t he hamburger
st and at lunch, and over chicken dinner in t he evening wit h Grace t hank t hee Lord and bless
t his food. The animal as meat belongs t o our religious beliefs. Compare, for inst ance, what an
Igloolik Eskimo said t o Rasmussen: The great est peril of life lies in t he fact t hat human food
consist s ent irely of souls. [39]
The hist orical degradat ion cont inues t o appear in dreams. A young woman from an inner-
Swiss Cat holic cant on dreams:
I pass a glass case of small stuffed animals of different kinds, and birds too, on display. As I come nearer and look
more closely, I am surprised to see that they are all alive and moving.
We can enjoy t his lit t le dream as t he psyches response t o Descart es. The animals t hat , at
first , seem st uffed wit h concept ual labels, available only for object ive st udy, insensit ive, dead,
are act ually suspended in t he glass vessel of t he psyche, in ones act ual case; and, if we st ep
closer t o t his animal display, we, and t hey t oo, will be surprised t o see t hat t hey are alive, and
moving.
The inevit able count er-impulse t o callousness is sent iment alit y, which in regard t o animals,
especially it s Brit ish moralist s from t he eight eent h cent ury onward, reaches culminat ion and
anot her mode of degradat ion in t his t went iet h-cent ury prayer writ t en for Brit ish Girl Guides:
Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our friends the animals we bless thee that thou carest for the dumb creatures
of the earth especially for animals who are suffering; for all that are overworked and underfed for all wistful
creatures in captivity, which beat against the bars, for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry
[40]
The degradat ion of pit y st ill places t he animals fat e in human hands. Roles are now reversed:
man may now be seen as best ial, t he animal as lovable, but t he animal remains pat het ically
dependent and lower.
The most familiar mode of degradat ion is evolut ion t heory. Homo sapiens is well at t he t op
of t he t ree. Yet Darwins t heory was received init ially and by many st ill t oday as a degradat ion
of mankind. Simply by ret urning humans t o t he animal kingdom, Darwin had put us t oo close t o
t he ape, t hat species which has carried t hrough t he cent uries one or anot her aspect of t he
cult urally repressed, whet her it be knowledge, drunkenness, brut alit y, figura diaboli, or
polymorphous pleasure. A psychological reason for why evolut ion t heory met such resist ance
is t hat t he ape is in it s shadow.
Not ions of evolut ion influence dream int erpret at ions. The lower t he evolut ional place of t he
animal, t he more t he creat ure is supposed t o develop, as for inst ance in t he well-known case
report ed by Medard Boss, where progress in t herapy showed an analogy wit h development of
t he animal images according t o t he evolut ionary scale, beginning wit h insect dreams, unt il t he
animals disappeared from t he dreams alt oget her. Jung, t oo, saw t he lower animal, serpent s for
inst ance, t o be indicat ive of cold-blooded reflex act ions, far from human.[41]
The implied t eleology in evolut ion t heory, however, is not t hat all kinds of animals st rive
t oward t he human est at e, but t hat each species achieves it s own perfect ion, like oyst ers and
sharks t hat have not changed in millions of years. A frog is not bet t er in a dream t han a fish, a
dog t han a wolf. There are no wrong or negat ive animals, in dreams or ot herwise. An alchemical
caut ion says, You cannot make a milk-cow out of a mouse. Each animal has it s own
perfect ion: it does not improve int o anot her species. A mouse brings it s own virt ue int o a
dream, and evaluat ive comparisons across t he species are odious because t hey desert t he
image and insult bot h t he mouse and t he milk-cow.
A reversal of evolut ion t heory is t he devolut ional view of animals, somet imes called
animalit arianism.[42] The beast s are fallen from t he human condit ion, and fallen for t heir sins.
Monkeys especially were once humans, but because of t heir sinful habit s, which anyone can
see, t hey became monkeys, grew hair, lost speech, and foul t heir own habit at ions. Jung, at one
point , put s t he devolut ional view more subt ly in t his quest ion: Are t he psychic funct ions of
animals remnant s of consciousness? [43] Implied is t he fant asy t hat int elligence precedes
inst inct , inst inct ual react ions being remnant s of more individualized and malleable adapt at ions
t hat have devolved int o segment ed inborn release mechanisms.
Jean Servier gives t he devolut ional view a beaut iful t wist . He t ells a t ale t hat animals in Nort h
African cult ures he has st udied are said t o be richer t han we. Why? Because t he rich give and
t he poor receive; since humans have speech and fire, and animals havent , we have been given
speech and fire by t he animals. Their richness is hidden; t hey carry an invisible fire, an inaudible
word.
The Animal Kingdom Within
The animal as hidden benefact or opens int o a series of views in which t he animal is int eriorized
int o t he human soul in one fashion or anot her as phylogenet ic t races, as t ot emic ancest ry,
as inborn release mechanisms and from t his animal we are descended or inst inct ually
empowered. It is t his animal face of t he psyche t hat we see in dreams.
Underst and t hat you have wit hin yourself herds of cat t le, says Origen in t he t hird cent ury
(in Pat ricia Coxs t ranslat ion), flocks of sheep and goat s and t hat t he birds of t he air are
also wit hin you You see t hat you have all t hose t hings which t he world has. [44] Not merely
are we each an ark, a microcosm cont aining t he animals, but t hey serve a funct ional purpose
inside us.
We need t he animals, says Laurens van der Post , because animals are reflect ions of
ourselves. We cant know ourselves unless we see ourselves reflect ed in t hem. They make
possible our reflect ive consciousness; indeed, we owe t hem fire and speech. Remember t he pig
possible our reflect ive consciousness; indeed, we owe t hem fire and speech. Remember t he pig
in t he t unnel, t he flickering firelight Does t hat dream image not imply t hat t he animal is
immersed in a lumen naturalis, which we gain from it ? Examining t he animals on t he cave walls
of France and Spain, Clayt on Eshleman claims t hat t hese first moment s of reflect ive
consciousness in humans occurred by means of naming t he animals and placing t hem out
t here, for t hey were drawn on t hose walls wholly by int erior vision in t he claust rophobic
dark.[45] Microcosm before macrocosm. As if t he origin of t he species, animal, is wit hin t he
soul.
Grant Wat son, t he Brit ish nat uralist whom I have ment ioned al-ready, says, yes indeed, we
have t hrown t he animals off and out . Not evolut ion, not we as development s on t op of t he
animal chain, going back t o amoeba. Rat her, we have t hrown off from our Adamic nat ures
t hese animal part s. Out t here roam t he hyenas, gorillas, and lit t le whit e lambs t hat we have
cast from ourselves. Of course, Adam knew t he names of t he animals, and t he cave man could
so t ruly paint t hem; t hey were part s of himself. Each animal has it s specialized calling,
bespeaking specific human charact erist ics, and even cont emporary laborat ory psychology and
zoology recognizes t hat one part icular species is ideally const ruct ed t o give answers t o each
part icular human problem.
A complet e elaborat ion of t he specific funct ion of each species is t he plan of t he
Polish/French physician-philosopher Hlan Jaworski. His formula is succinct : Zoology
int eriorized becomes physiology physiology ext eriorized becomes zoology. [46] The animals
out t here are our human organs; our organs are int eriorized animal species.
Bat rachia (frogs and t oads) present t he skin: human sweat , sebaceous and sudorific cells
have t heir analogy in t he cut aneous exudat ions of frogs and t oads. Crust aceans are limbs
even t heir eyes are on st alks, and a separat ed claw can be grown again. Snakes have lost t heir
limbs for t he sake of digest ion, int eriorizing t heir locomot ion t o locomot or perist alsis. They
digest for days, defenseless and soporific, aided even by t heir spinal column and t heir jaws t hat
can dislocat e t o accommodat e meals larger t han t hemselves. Fish, t he skelet al st ruct ure;
molluscs and oct opus, t he female genit als; insect s, t he ext ernal equivalent of t he human
veget at ive nervous syst em, hence t heir symbiosis wit h t he plant kingdom. Higher mammals are
ext eriorizat ions (or excrescent souls in older language) of t he human psyche and it s
emot ions. Monkeys, for inst ance, are all hands, even t heir t ails are hands. Swinging, picking,
grooming, t easing: t hey are t he present at ion of manipulat ive abilit ies. The lion is courage; t he
fox, cunning; and t he leopard, cruelt y. Furt her, if all living forms happened t o disappear, man,
dissociat ed int o each of his different part s and organs, could recreat e t hem again.
This homeopat hic vision offers deep organic kinship, all t he while maint aining human
superiorit y. We can recreat e t he animals one by one from our organic funct ions, but only all of
t hem t oget her, each cont ribut ing it s specifically circumscribed funct ion, could recreat e man.
Animals remain part ial funct ions. Int o our hands t hey are st ill delivered.
The idea of t he animal as an int erior funct ion of t he human cont inues in dept h psychology.
Freud writ es,
Wild beasts are as a rule employed by the dream-work to represent passionate impulses of which the dreamer is
afraid (It then needs only a slight displacement for the wild beasts to come to represent the people who are
possessed by these passions a dreaded father is represented by a beast of prey or a dog or wild horse.
Many of the beasts which are used as genital symbols in myth-ology and folklore play the same part in dreams
e.g., fishes, snails, cats, mice (on account of the pubic hair), and above all those most important symbols of the
male organ snakes. Small animals and vermin represent undesired brothers and sisters.[47]
Wilhelm St ekel carries t his furt her. The t oad is a womb; wet , slippery animals (snails, frogs, et c.)
are t o be t aken as feminine; dog, snake, and bird are penis equivalent s. The flea is a phallus
because it is fresh, lively and aggressive. Ernest Jones explains why animal images represent
t he sexual libido:
Doubtless the feature of animals that most attracts is the freedom they display in openly satisfying needs,
particularly those of a sexual and excremental order Children often owe their first experience of sexual activities
to the sight of animal copulation Animals therefore lend themselves to the individual representation of crude and
unbridled wishes.[48]
Now hear Jung regarding t he animal:
People dont understand when I tell them they should become acquainted with their animals or assimilate their
animals. They think the animal is always jumping over walls and raising hell all over town. Yet in nature the animal
is a well-behaved citizen. It is pious, it follows the path with great regularity, it does nothing extravagant. Only man is
extravagant. So if you assimilate the nature of the animal you become a peculiarly law-abiding citizen, you can go
very slowly, and you become very reasonable in your ways We have an entirely wrong idea of the animal; we
must not judge from the outside. From the outside you see, perhaps, a pig wallowing in mud, but that is partially
because man has made the pig what it is; judged from the outside that pig is dirty But it is not for the pig. You
must put yourself inside the pig.[49]
That was Jung, fift y years ago. Cont emporary analyt ical psychology has t ransformed t hat
basic empat hy for t he animal int o an idealizat ion of a t heoret ical abst ract ion: inst inct . Today,
most ly, t he animal in a dream funct ions t o represent a phylogenet ically older level of t he
psyche, oft en referred t o as inst inct ive, cht honic, primit ive, or simply as t he body from
which t he modern ego is judged t o be t oo far removed. The dream animal compensat es an
overrat ionalized and denat uralized human condit ion.
An art icle by Mario Jacoby well present s t he cont emporary Jungian view: Animal dreams are
first and foremost compensat ing for t he const ant ly inherent danger of t he loss of inst inct s in
humans. [50] The inst inct ual basis of human nat ure is like an inner menagerie in which all
species must be cared for, else t hey become ravenous or die out . Any animal t hat becomes
t oo devouring represent s t hat part ial drive t o which t he human has become vict im. For
inst ance, falling prey t o t he herd inst inct shows in sheep and goat dreams, t he power inst inct
shows in lion and eagle dreams. A mouse t hat gnaws in t he dark represent s t he sexual
st irrings t hat one regards as insignificant and yet are feared as dist urbing: The dream animal
is t hus an image of a specific inst inct ual behavior. [51]
The animal represent s. It has a single funct ion: t he rodent gnaws, t he sheep gat her in
herds. This mode of underst anding follows an old allegorical topos. Gregory of Nyssa, for
inst ance, cont ended t hat humans become t oads t hrough lust , vult ures t hrough cruelt y, and
t igers t hrough anger. The rubric of each animal kind becomes confused wit h each animal
having but one so-called inst inct ual funct ion. The met hod is like a medieval best iary where
each animal serves t o moralize in t erms of Christ . Here, each animal serves t o moralize in t erms
of an ego t hat sees a st ereot ypical aspect of it self in t he behavior of t he animal.
Besides t he unexamined t heoret ical assumpt ions t hat divide human nat ure int o an
inst inct ual unconscious and a rat ionalized cult ural consciousness bet ween which operat es a
syst em of compensat ions, where animal symbols funct ion as servo-mechanisms, t his
compensat ory view does not , as Jung says, put yourself inside t he pig. And, it neglect s t he
humor of each animal st yle. Fables, cart oons, t oys, and childrens t ales worldwide show t hat
each animal is funny, fun t o wat ch, and also a mode of play.
The Household Mouse
Consider t he household mouse: it has not merely a single funct ion and it s image in a dream is
not merely a symbolic represent at ion of t hat funct ion. That flat t ens t he mouse, making it s
incursion int o t he dream t oo underst andable. Inside t he mouse means t o do just ice t o t he
rich, complet e being t hat each animal is, wit h it s int ricat e adapt ive manners of eat ing, breeding,
nurt uring, moving, it s coloring and eyes, it s geography. Each animal present s not only a way of
surviving and self-preservat ion; it shows also pat t erns of defense and pat hologizing, and, as
well, ways of relishing t he world t hrough specialized senses and int elligence. Mice dont just
gnaw; t hey list en. And t hey are beaut iful.
If you put yourself inside t he mouse, you can sit t here quiet as a mouse and hear t he world,
it s lit t le t onalit ies, it s whispers, and t o do t his you must remain very nearby and yet very hidden
every muscle alive and st ill (and muscle and mouse are et ymological cousins) so as not
t o int erfere wit h what s going on, t he sounds, t he smells, by calling at t ent ion t o yourself. Int ent ,
int ense, you follow well-regulat ed, almost purit an pat hs because you can succumb t o
paralyzing hyst erical fugues if found by a cat or a snake. On your lit t le grey back you carry t he
suddenness of t he invenio, t he unexpect ed breaking int o t he familiar like t he ret urn of
dead souls, especially lit t le ones (children), like t he lecherous passions and t hirst for
drunkenness of humans t rapped in households. You must be bot h surrept it ious, humble,
mousey, and yet brazen, cheeky, hurry-scurry, because t hieving is in your nat ure, breaking and
ent ering, t hrough cart ons, grain bags, walls; what ever is laid up and st ored away is subject t o
t he invent ive genius of t he mouse, inspiring t he invent ive response t o build a bet t er
mouset rap, for you are like lit t le mercurius, t ricky-micky, who does not allow paranoid part it ions
by making holes and opening t he ways t hat humans fear as cont aminat ion, t he profligat e
spreading-out t hrough quick-breeding or t hrough fleas and disease.[52] And t he cat , who
would cont rol t he household for it s egocent ric comfort , needs you t o hunt , so you are sat isfied
wit h left overs, crumbs, what ever falls t o your greedy modest y.
Beware of t rapping t he mouse of t he dream in t heories of sexual repression and funct ional
compensat ion. Inst ead, by put t ing yourself inside t he t heriomorphic imaginat ion, you may save
t he phenomenon from t he t heories. This was, aft er all, Gods concern, saving t he phenomenon
animal or is it a noumenon? for which he commanded an ark be built . The world could go
under, it s cit ies, forest s, and plains, and all it s people except ing one nuclear family. But what
must survive of all t hat He made are t he seeds of creat ion t he animals.
Body
I want t o carry my crit ique of dept h psychologys view of animal images furt her t han it s
assumpt ions about inst inct versus cult ure, and furt her t han it s use of each animal as an
allegorical disguise for t hese so-called human inst inct s. We also need t o quest ion t he
ident ificat ion of animal wit h body.
Body is a curious word in English, t ending t o mean a limbless, headless, cent ral mass, a
t orso or t runk, unart iculat ed and coagulat ed, clumped, and even inert . Oft en it is a collect ive
noun: a body of wat er, a body of soldiers, a body of writ ings. It s derivat ion is obscure: t he anglo-
saxon bodig, going back t o t he Old High German botah/potah, is probably relat ed wit h t he
German bottich brewing t ub, cask, vat . This relat ion is doubt ful and t here are no ot hers. The
word is an orphan, wit hout cousins. Pokornys giant et ymological encyclopedia does not
elaborat e it . Onianss mast erwork on t he ideas of body organs and funct ions does not discuss
t he very word in t he books t it le.[53] Thass-Thienemanns t wo-volume Freudian st udy of
language claims t hat in language t he human body is t he primary realit y and t he references t o
t he body and body processes are prior t o any object references. [54] Yet Thass-Thienemann
forgoes examinat ion of t he prime word, body, t o which he claims all ot hers refer.
Body, t he primary referent of phenomenology and t he t ranscendent met aphor of school
aft er school of t herapy, remains a curiously unreflect ed word in t he English language. Perhaps
t his unreflect edness is precisely what body signifies, a kind of dumb, brut e event , direct , naive,
and unart iculat ed. It seems t o be t he root met aphor of t he nat uralist ic fallacy in psychology.
Therapeut ic at t empt s t o different iat e body, awakening it and reaching psyche t hrough it , e.g.,
t he body t herapies, may t hus be at t empt s t o work t hrough not body as such but
consciousness t rapped in t he nat uralist ic perspect ive.
Animal images can different iat e t his nat uralism. Inst ead of locat ing t he animals in t he body,
we can break up body int o animal imagery. A variet y of animal pairs pull t he many chariot s of
sexual love (as depict ed in murals in Ferrara),[55] t hereby different iat ing t he sexual body int o a
swan-like st yle, a pig-like st yle, or a manner of mat ing like t wo t urt le doves. Physical life
(inst inct ) is always imaged.[56] Body is always carried by t he soul in a specific fashion. And t his
carriage derives from t he souls images. The animal images are t hus carriers or vehicles of
bodily exist ence. Or, bet t er said, t here is no such t hing as body as such, as t here was no
word for it in Biblical Hebrew, but t here are many variet ies of animal images more relevant t o
act ual behavior and more precisely efficient for capt uring it s pat t erns t han t he general concept
body. [57]
When animals are equat ed wit h body, one of t wo t hings t ends t o happen. Eit her t he animals
must represent t he st upidit y of t he body, t hat it is low, driven, and desirous, a headless and
burdensome beast , as W.B. Yeat s says in his Last Poems (The Man and t he Echo):
Waking he thanks the Lord that he
Has body and its stupidity.
Or t he animals are praised for t heir marvellous inst inct ual sureness, t he wisdom of t he body as
t he nat ural superiorit y of t he million-year-old inner animal. To become healt hy and normal, one
must only let t he animal lead by following t he body.
Anot her poet , Gerald Burns, quest ions psychologys idealizat ion of t he body:
Analysis of mind is incomplete
when body means something normal
and how one twists in vain or rage
escapes the attention;
By assigning animals t o t he body, we normalize t heir specific peculiarit ies. They disappear in a
collect ive noun, t hat t ub as melt ing pot . They lose t heir names. We neglect t hat an ape body
differs from a horse body, and t hat again differs according t o t he horse in t he image. Does it
kick at t he st all slat s, pull a beer wagon, t ake sugar wit h it s lips? What color is it and where is it
and whom is it wit h? A dream animal is in t he image and not in t he body.
Besides, t he animal in a dream present s not my body, what ever t he word connot es, but it s
body, t he essent ial ot herness of it s shape and mot ion, t he self-display of its physical presence.
Beyond Interiorization
There was a t ime when psychoanalysis had t o int eriorize t he animals, degrade t hem int o an
inner psychic menagerie, t hat microcosm of Origen, t hat st andard Lat in topos of t he animal
soul as a jungle or zoo wit hin t he human being.[58] Int eriorizat ion int o inst inct , int o body, were
ways t o reclaim what had been t hrown out and away and t o bring t he animals int o an inner
feeling of kinship. Aft er t he ext reme ont ic ot herness of t he St oics, Romans, Christ ians, and
Cart esians, where t he animal was merely amusement , propert y, meat and machine,
int eriorizat ion at least gave t he animal kingdom a habit at ion in t he soul.
The soul, however, has undergone a long process of subject ivism. It is no longer t he psyche
in t he Plat onic sense (I inside it ). Soul has t aken on t he int erior personalism of August ine (it
inside me), culminat ing in t he int rospect ive ident ificat ion of all soul event s as mine, my
emot ions, my body and it s needs. Thus t he mouse in t he dream is my t repidat ion; and t he pig,
my greed. Immanence has lost it s ot herness, which Jung t ried t o rest ore wit h his not ion of t he
objective psyche, where images exist in t heir own right . Like t he fox in t he forest , which is not
mine just because I see it , so t he fox in t he dream is not mine just because I dream it .
For t he animals t o exist in t heir own ot herness, t hey have t o be kept safe from t he law of
compensat ion t hat declares t he dream is st rict ly causal, always in compensat ory relat ion
wit h t he conscious mind. [59] So long as I can affect t he animals in my dreams by t he st ance I
t ake in day-world consciousness, t he t ranscendent ot herness of t he kingdom wit hin cannot be
dist inguished from my unconscious psychological life, t he sins and wishes of emot ions t hat t he
animals have been forced t o represent .[60] They reside not inside human nat ure but inside
our view of human nat ure; our subject ivist personalit y t heory const ruct s t he cages of t he inner
zoo. The law of compensat ion has delivered dream animals wholly int o human hands, t he
hands of our humanist ic int erpret at ions.
What I have been crit icizing as funct ionalism, symbolism, or subject ivism can be subsumed
under int eriorizat ion. Animal image as represent at ion of organ, drive, or Daseinsweise is st ill a
degradat ion, even if t his mode is t he most subt le and psychological. Lost is t he animal as ot her,
it s ownership of it self as a self-possessed creat ure wit h it s own nat ure not assimilable t o mine.
Can we leave t he animal out t here in it s ot herness and yet ret ain it s psychological import and
our kinship wit h it ? Can we remain psychological wit hout int eriorizing?
Henri Frankfort [61] wrest les wit h a similar quest ion regarding t he animal-god relat ion in
Egypt ian religion. First of all, Frankfort says, t he t erm animal gods is wrong. They were not
t ot emic figures; t here was no sacred bonding wit h t he animal, and t he animal did not funct ion
as a symbolic represent at ion of a god in t he way t hat an eagle elucidat es t he charact er of
Zeus: There was not hing met aphorical in t he connect ion bet ween god and animal in Egypt .
No funct ionalism. No int eriorizat ion. Rat her, animals as such possessed religious significance
for t he Egypt ians. Their at t it ude might well have arisen from a religious int erpret at ion of t he
animals ot herness. A recognit ion of ot herness is implied in all specifically religious feeling. Here
Frankfort refers t o Rudolf Ot t o.
We assume, t hen, says Frankfort , t hat t he Egypt ian int erpret ed t he nonhuman as
superhuman, in part icular when he saw it in animals in t heir inart iculat e wisdom, t heir
cert aint y, t heir unhesit at ing achievement , and above all in t heir st at ic realit y. Wit h animals t he
cont inual succession of generat ions brought no change They would appear t o share t he
fundament al nat ure of creat ion: it s repet it ious, rhyt hmic st abilit y. Each animal confirms t hat
living forms cont inue; t hey are et ernal forms walking around. An animal is et ernit y alive and
displayed. Each giraffe and polar bear is bot h an individual here and now and t he species it self,
unchanging, always self-creat ing according t o kind. Each polar bear present s t he et ernal ret urn
of t he polar-bear spirit as a guardian, a spiritus rector, from which, according t o Ivar Paulson
speaking of t he circumpolar arct ic peoples, t he very idea of a God arises. Gods originat ed
wit hin t he animal world it self, t hat is, wit h t he act ual animal. [62]
This offers an answer t o t he quest ion about t he nat ure of t he animal rubrics, t he general
best iary names, e.g., Pig, Eagle, Crab. Species names go back t o Adam in t he garden of myt h.
Each species is a primordial subst ance or living archet ype as visible image t o which t he
quest ion of origin, being t emporal, cannot apply. The origin of t he species is out side hist orical,
empirical knowledge. The species can be apprehended t hemselves as origins, as revelat ions of
et ernal forms, and so t heories repeat edly t urn t o t hem for t he secret of origins.
In t he animal image is t he et ernal ret urn in Eliades sense, t he ricorso, not as a deat h
inst inct , repet it ious int o ent ropy, but issuing fort h ever t he same from creat ion, as t he
t hundering herds of buffalo t o t he Plains Indians were always t he same buffalo charging up
from t he eart h each spring, not subject t o hist ory, each species breaking t hrough hist ory.
Repet it ion as renewal, a blessing, a wit ness t o cont inuing creat ion. So, when t he last giraffe,
t he last whit e bear falls dead, it is also t he first giraffe whom Adam named and who was on t he
ark. It s fall is t he ext inct ion of an et ernal seed, a divinit y killed deicide.
Their cert aint y, t heir unhesit at ing achievement , t heir st at ic realit y (Frankfort ) confirms in
humans an animal fait h. We rely on t he t erm animal t o express our unquest ioning confidence
in t he realit y of being. What we abst ract ly call inst inct is a behavior of cert aint y, exhibit ing
fait h in repet it ious, st at ic realit ies, following t he pat h, as Jung said, wit h great regularit y. The
West ern cult of change t hrough human will, it s belief in hist orical progress, of course declares
t hese wit nesses of primordial fait h in t he realit y of cont inuit y t o belong t o a lesser kingdom or
declares t hem already by definit ion ext inct , t hat is, soulless, irrat ional, or mechanical. But t he
recovery of t hese forms in our dreams can rest ore t hat animal fait h in t he repet it ion of
cont inuing realit ies, t hat animal cert aint y, as Frankfort calls it , or preservat ion of t he species, as
biology calls it . The animal is t he unhesit at ing answer t o nihilism: it must go on, each according
t o it s kind. In each animal t he ark is recapit ulat ed, and t he Garden. In illo tempore, t his morning
in your dream.
The ot herness of each animal form is what I believe Adolf Port manns scrut iny of concret e
nat ure brought us t o see and feel for t hirt y years at Eranos. (Curiously, his lect ures were for
many years t he last ones, each year closing wit h t his disguised t ribut e t o t he animal kingdom,
as more recent ly it has been closing wit h t he t heme of Egypt where, t oo, t he animal could not
be more honored. Closing lect ures t hat , by rit ually invoking t he animals, bespeak our fait h in t he
cont inuit y of Eranos.)
Port mann insist ed t hat appearance, like experience, is a basic charact erist ic of being
alive. [63] All living t hings are urged t o present t hemselves, display t hemselves, t o show
ostentatio, which was a common Lat in t ranslat ion of t he Greek phantasia, fant asy. Each
animals ost ent at ion is it s fant asy of it self, it s self-image as an aest het ic event wit hout ult erior
funct ion. Port mann brought many kinds of evidence for t hese unaddressed appearances. For
example, t he small t ransparent oceanic creat ures t hat live in t he int eriors of ot her larger
creat ures or below t he dept hs where light can reach, having no visual organs t hemselves, and
whose brilliant ly vivid and symmet rically pat t erned forms serve no funct ions, neit her as
messages t o t heir own species, as at t ract ions or warnings, nor as disguises. Sheer appearance
for it s own sake; unaddressed. Here, self-display is realized in it s purest form. Appearance is
t he result of a very specific st ruct ure of t he plasma; it is it s own purpose. [64]
Appearance is its own purpose does t his not say t hat t he animal is an aest het ic creat ion,
t hat t he animal eye is an aest het ic eye, and t hat t he animal is compelled by an aest het ic
necessit y t o present it self as image?
Port manns radical insight int o t he biological necessit y of t he aest het ic explodes t he sheerly
funct ional not ion of animals, st ruggling t o feed and breed, ever in fear and t rembling, t heir
demeure as mere t errit ory or possessive propert y, and whose reason for being on eart h is
sheer preservat ion wit hout spirit , wit hout sport , wit hout play. And we see, t oo, how human
psychology, by using t his narrow view of animal life, cannot t ake t heir images in dreams
ot herwise, implying t hat t he way back t o t he animal kingdom for humans must be only t hrough
brut alism and best ialit y sex, body, t errit ory, fight or flight , release mechanisms, imprint ing;
nat ure st ill red in fang and claw. Then a behavioral, biology-based psychology must view t he
aest het ic as a secondary accompaniment of more species-preserving funct ions or as
incident al decorat ion. Psychology has refused t o see t hat t he animal kingdom is first of all an
aest het ic ost ent at ion, a fant asy on show, of colors and songs, of gait s and flight s, and t hat
t his aest het ic display is a primordial inst inct ual force laid down in t he organic st ruct ure.
Our at t empt t o delit eralize int eriorizat ion has t aken a second st ep. First , we had t o see t hat
t he int eriorit y of animal images is not inside us. Now, we are led t o see t hat t his int eriorit y is
also not inside t hem. Their Innerlichkeit is in t heir appearance. The int erior selfness of t he
animal appears in it s displayed image. Int eriorit y need not follow ant hropomorphic and
subject ive not ions of memory, experience, and int ent ionalit y. Not self-consciousness but self-
present at ion.
I am cont inuing here wit h a t heme I began t o formulat e last year as a dept h psychology of
ext raversion t he t urn t o t he world as a psychological arena where any event displayed t o
t he senses is also an imaginat ive form. From t his dept h perspect ive of t he world, all t hings are
displays, and imaginat ion and percept ion, invisible and visible, int uit ion and sensat ion do not fall
apart when discerned wit h an animal eye.
How t o gain t his animal eye? How t o put yourself inside t he pig? We have t ouched upon
several ways: making phylogenet ic correspondences wit h human embryology; int eriorizing t he
animals as human physiology; seeing st ereot ypical behaviors as allegories (t he greedy pig);
discovering t he symbolic essence by means of amplificat ion (t he devouring eart h-mot her pig).
Now let us move beyond correspondences, symbolizat ion, int eriorizing, and living forms as
met aphors. Let us at t empt anot her ent ry int o t he animal kingdom. Can we climb aboard t he
ark?
A man dreams:
I am walking with my wife outdoors somewhere. We notice a lot of ants; we get interested in them, even getting
down and looking at them from eye level. Maybe even picking them up like being one of them. Seeing things as they
do.
In t he next dream, t he wife kneels down t o a dog in order t o show some children, who cannot
learn t he dogs t rick, how t o do it . And t he dog t hen easily performs it s t rick.
By bringing our superior post ures t o t he level of t he creat ure, kneeling t o it , condescension,
we begin t o see as t hey do; a t ransposed eye. Gods ret ain t his animal eye. Their animal heads
and animal masks display t heir animal consciousness. The head of t he animal on t he human
t orso maint ains t hat lower, immanent vision of creat ureliness creat or and creat ure, God and
animal, in t he same figure.
To see wit h t he creat urely eye is an act of imagining t he world so t hat it appears in
cont inuing animat ion, in a cont inuing play of creat ion wit h which human consciousness
part icipat es by means of imagining act s. Not t he creat ive imaginat ion as some wondrous gift
t hat creat es images, art , and ideas. Rat her, t he t ransposed eye it self releases what is int o it s
own creat edness, each event as a present at ion of creat ivit y. The human imaginat ion is not t he
creat or, does not creat e; it sees t he creat ive, creat ively in t he worlds ongoing Schau it s
Spiel.
Spiel, play in English, is root ed in t he meanings t o dance for joy, t o rejoice, be glad as t he
Hebrew legends of t he animals who chant and sing praise. The word play is packed wit h
animal mot ions. It means t o st rut , dance, or ot herwise display oneself as a cock bird before
hens; t o move about swift ly wit h a lively capricious (goat like) mot ion; t o fly, t o dart t o and fro, t o
frisk, flit , flut t er, oscillat e freely; t he play of light on shining, glint ing, bright surfaces (like
feat hers, shells, scales) Wit h animals in mind an idea of play st ands fort h as t he revelat ion of
fant asy in act ion, it s free mot ion, it s animat ed joy in t he present at ion of an image. Wit h animals
in mind, play is t he visible display of t he invisible, free of purpose, of funct ion, ot her t han it s own
display.
The phonet ic link bet ween play and display and I have learned from Paul Kugler [65] t hat
such links may indicat e profound connect ions suggest s t hat t he animals urge t o self-
revelat ion is reason enough for it s creat ion. That is precisely t he help it offers Adam: t he animal
cont inually reminds t hat t he play of creat ion is revelat ion. To be is t o be seen; beaut y is given
wit h exist ence. As Port mann shows, t o be seen is as genet ic as t o see: t he organic st ruct ures
of pat t erning, coloring, and symmet rical display are as genet ic as t he ocular organs t hat allow
seeing t he display. In fact , t he coat is genet ically prior t o t he eye t hat sees t he coat . It is t his
beaut y of t he phenomenal and it s everlast ing ret urn of t he same t hat t he animals reveal, as if
t hey revel in t heir own fant asy not informat ion, not communicat ion, not met aphor, beyond
underst anding and meaning, t he beaut y of t hese amazingly complicat ed and ot her living
beings. It is as if t hey say, look at us wit h respect re-spect , which means, look again as if
Adams eyes were made t o see t heir images, or t o see t hem as archet ypal images.
Inside t he ark it was dark, of course, for t he ark was covered wit h pit ch, inside and out
(Genesis 6:14). By what light , t hen, did t he creat ures see? What is t he vision of t hese
seeds [66] in t he ark, t he essent ial vision? Jewish legend says t hat God sent t he archangel
Raphael t o Noah wit h a book of wisdom in which were writ t en all t he secret s and myst eries. By
means of t his book, Noah knew how t o fulfill his t ask and gat her t he animals. Wit h him int o t he
ark he t ook t his book and it was made of sapphires, and by means of it s light all t he creat ures
in t he ark could see.
The incorrupt ible subst ance of t he caelum is t he light by which t he corrupt ible animals see.
The nat ural animals have an imaginal vision; t he physical world perceives by a met aphysical
light . To rest ore t o our human eye t hat sapphire light we must be pressed in among t he
animals against t he pit ch wall. The way t o t he imaginal lies in t he animal.
Implicat ions of t his blue sophic light are t o be sought in t he writ ings of Gershom Scholem,
Henry Corbin, C.G. Jung, and in t he fift y yearbooks of Eranos. We come t o t hese conferences
for t he sake of t hat light . For my part , let me suggest only t hat t he eye t hat sees by a sapphire
vision is brought by t he animal in t he dream. The blue vision is inside t he pig and we get inside
t he pig for t he sake of it s sapphire light . Int eriorizat ion is not t hem in us but we wit h t hem
inside t he ark.
Why do t hey come t o us, t he animals? If not a part of us, if not subject ive part ial drives,
symbolic represent at ions of st ereot ypical st yles, but presences, daimones what do t hey
want inhabit ing our dreams?
Why does t he polar bear come t hrough t he door, t he eagle descend t o sit among men?
A woman dreams:
There are a lot of tiny animal creatures who have fragments of an original knowledge, guidance, which they
preserve jealously with great tenacity to keep it, and them, alive. I watch them guarding these fragments, and
scurrying around, building, or rebuilding, their living place, and I feel reassured and hopeful. I know (without being
able to say why it is so) that these holy fragments will last forever, go on forever, yet will help only if these creatures
give them their utmost care and attention.
Are t hese creat ures t he animal guardians t hat t he creat ion may perpet uat e, and do t hey claim
a similar careful at t ent ion from us? Can we know t he answer wit hout at t ending t o t hem,
speaking wit h t hem? We may guess why t hey come, but let us yield t he degrading beliefs t hat
t hey come for our subject ive purposes, t o compensat e our omissions. Perhaps, t hey fear t he
loss of human kinship, t hat t hey have already been excluded from t he next ark, or t hat t he
gods have desert ed t hem so t hat t hey are like a displaced people merely an ecological problem
for administ rat ive solut ions and charit able pit y. Imagine pit y for an eagle! We cannot know
what t hey come for unt il we first st art t o wonder, unt il we t urn t he plane around and look int o
t he wat er where t he bear wait s, unt il we feed deep, deep upon t hat pigs black and peerless
eye, unt il we condescend t o t he ant . These t heophanies, are t hey calling t he dream soul int o
t heir kingdom?
We know t he record of ext erminat ion. The animal kingdom, from t he caveman t hrough
Darwin on t he Galapagos and Melville on t he whaler, is no more. Insect icides lie on t he leaves.
In t he green hills of Africa, t he bull elephant s are brought t o t heir knees for t heir t usks. We long
for an ecological rest orat ion of t he kingdom t hat is impossible. Yet it is a noble longing, for it
houses a ut opian impulse, an impulse t hat can be sat isfied in t he nowhere world of t he dream.
There, t heir souls and ours meet as images. The dream is an ark in which all living forms
according t o t heir kinds can abide during t he et ernal cat aclysm t hat is cot erminous wit h t he
ark. Do t hey come t o remind of t he cat aclysm t hat occurs whenever humans fail t o see by a
blue light ,[67] fail t o see t hat t he invisible is in t he percept ible, an invisible t hat shadows
appearances wit h t heir ot herness, unaddressed t o our needs and meanings. Do t hey come
so t hat we may st ill see beaut y, even t o save beaut y?
The rest orat ion of t he animal kingdom is t hus a rest orat ion of ourselves t o t hat kingdom via
t he dream where mot ifs t hat we encount ered in dream aft er dream of t he research ext end
beyond t he heroic st ereot ypes of myt hic amplificat ion [68] t he animal as fearful and
dangerous, it s conquest and our superiorit y t o mot ifs of learning from t he animal, amazed by
it s beaut y, t ouched by it s pain, reconciliat ion wit h it , being borne, helped, saved by t he animal.
These dream mot ifs rest ore t he reason given in Genesis 2 for t he creat ion of t he animals as
succor ( ezer) . The t errible wildness of animals disappears in messianic t imes say bot h Jewish
legend and t he Sybilline oracles.These moment s of rest orat ion appear in dreams: saved by t he
swimming bear, piglet s arisen and delight ing, t he animals rest ored t o life in t he glass case.
It has been said many t imes at Eranos t hat t he soul is in exile from it s Plat onic possibilit y,
t he terre pure, t he Temple. But t hat rest orat ion may require anot her more prior: recovery of t he
ark and Eden, a recovery expressed t oday as an ecological nost algia for a topos, a perimet er
where human and animal share t he same kingdom. But t he dream it self encloses us
prot ect ively in t he saving ark, in t he originat ing garden, and t here in t he dream, we may recover
t he habit s of t he crab and t he mouse, t he knowledge of t he pig, t he animal coat , t he animal
t ail, t he animal eye.
Is it possible t hat it is we who are delivered int o t heir hands t o guard us from our own
ext inct ion? Yet we cannot summon t hem. They are ot her. It is for t hem t o come t o us. Will an
eagle dive? Will a crab t ake hold t onight ? Sleep, and hope for a pig.
Originally published in Eranos Yearbook 51 (1982).
1T. Bewick, A General History of Quadrupeds, 3rd ed. (Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1792), 270.
2I. Paulson, The Animal Guardian: A Critical and Synthetic Review, History of Religions 3 (1964), 20219.
3E.L. Grant Watson, Animals in Splendour (London: John Baker, 1967).
4E. Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents and Insects (London, 1658).
5C. Gesner, Historiae Animalium (Zurich, 155158).
6Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzhat-Al-Qulb [1340] (Tehran, 1957).
7See CW 7:12365.
8See CW 8:24143.
9See E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London: Penguin, 1967).
10See P. Lum, The Stars in Our Heaven: Myths and Fables (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948).
11K. Kernyi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, trans. R. Manheim (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1967), 55.
12 CW 10:646.
13 CW 12:403.
14 CW 6:320.
15J. Layard, Identification with the Sacrificial Animal, Eranos Yearbook 24 (1955), 390.
16E. Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1963), 18ff.
17See CW 4:32930; CW 10:771, 733.
18The victory of the lion over the pig (boar) was a Greek iconographical and literary convention. For example, in
Homer, Patroclus was the lion while he was winning and became the boar as he died. See E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death
in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979), 8892.
19See A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Routledge, 1967).
20See C.J. Warden, Animal Intelligence, Scientific American (June 1951), 6468.
21Recent research dates the domestication of the pig no later than 6000 BCE; supposedly the dog and sheep go back at
least as far as 7500 and 9000 BCE. Pig-keeping required settlements, and pigs were not suited to the life of food gatherers,
nomads, and hunters. See Animals in Archeology, ed. A.H. Brodrick (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), where it is also
noted that an aversion to pigs does seem to have existed from very early times in certain parts of western Asia (32).
22Immediately after leaving the ark, the eagle committed the first murder by slaying a bird. God enabled it to escape
punishment by the other birds by means of its high flight (L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 5: From the Creation
to Exodus [Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998], 187 n 51).
23Italian proverb: Eagles dont breed doves.
24On the renewal of the eagle through song, dance, and festival, see the story of old Eagle Mother told to Knud
Rasmussen and retold by Nor Hall in The Moon and the Virgin (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 105108.
25On the eagle and shamanism, see the literature referred to by Mircea Eliade in Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of
Ecstasy, trans. W.R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972).
26 CW 9.1:41318.
27W. Schad, Man and Mammals: Toward a Biology of Form (Garden City, N.Y.: Waldorf Press, 1977).
28H. Hediger, Psychology and Behaviour of Captive Animals in Zoos and Circuses (London: Butterworth, 1955), 9192.
29A. Portmann, Animals as Social Beings, trans. O. Coburn (London: Hutchinson, 1963), 8789.
30I am not singling out the giraffe as sole example of awkward maternity, since infant mortality, infanticide, and neonate
nurturing, both in captivity and in the wild, are complex subjects of research; I am simply noticing that the animal used by
Hediger as witness for awkward maternity was the giraffe.
31W. Schad, Man and Mammals, 6668.
32J. Passmore, Treatment of Animals, Journal of the History of Ideas 36.2 (1975), 197.
33In Confessions V, 3.5 and VII, 9.15, Augustine recapitulates Pauls Letter to the Romans 1:2325, explaining that the
worship of animals, the sense of their divinity, is a falling from God, a worship of the organic and corruptible and the
mortal rather than the immortal; the creature rather than the Creator. The paradigm of this sin of preferring the created over
the Creator is the confrontation between Moses, who like an eagle could look into the face of the highest, and the red or
golden calf. That scene has in its background the theriomorphic division between eagle and calf as represented, for
instance, by the sign of the eagle on cattle enclosures in the ancient Middle East to ward off the rapacious bird of heights.
Popular tradition holds that the eagle was anathema to the Jews, which shows regardless of Babylonian and Syrian
associations with the eagle a psychological awareness of the dangers of the ascending spirit and its transcendent
theology, i.e., John, the Eagle. The division between calf and eagle can lead to the division between nature and spirit,
created and creator, as emphasized in the theologies of Paul and Augustine.
34 St. Francis of Assisi, raised from parochial obscurity by a fin-de-sicle biography (Paul Sabatiers Life of St. Francis
of Assisi [1893], trans. L.S. Houghton [New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1928]), is often held up by Christian apologists
as exemplar of the love for animals inherent in Christian doctrine. Not only, however, does Francis have little theological
influence, but this story is told in the anonymous Fioretti di San Francesco (Little Flowers of St. Francis): when Brother
Jonathan, Franciss disciple, being ill, had a great longing for pig trotters, Jonathan cut the foot off a living pig. Saint
Francis rebuked him, but with no reference whatsoever to his callousness. He urged him, only, to apologize to the owner
of the pig for having damaged his property. (Passmore, Treatment of Animals, 200.)
35Duties Towards Animals and Other Spirits, in I. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, trans. L. Infield (New York: Harper and
Row, 1963), 23941.
36J.H. Cardinal Newman, Sermons Preached on Various Occasions (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908), 79
80.
37See Passmore, Treatment of Animals, 204.
38S. Toyoyuki, The Meat-Eating Philosophy, in M. Hyoe and E. Seidensticker, eds., Guides to Japanese Culture
(Tokyo: Japan Culture Institute, 1977).
39S. Giedion, The Eternal Present: A Contribution on Constancy and Change (New York: Pantheon Books, 1962), 290.
40See C.W. Hume, The Status of Animals in the Christian Religion (London: Universities Federation for Animal Welfare,
1957).
41 CW 9.2:369.
42Animalitarianism, or the innate superiority of animals, is discussed with historical documentation by A.O. Lovejoy
and G. Boas in their Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (New York: Octagon Books, 1965).
43 CW 9.1:502.
44P. Cox, Origen on the Bestial Soul: A Poetics of Nature, Vigiliae Christianae 36 (1982), 11540.
45C. Eshleman, Preface to Hades in Manganese (Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow Press, 1981).
46H. Jaworski, Batrachia, Reptiles, Birds Their Significance, British Homeopathic Journal 48.3 (1959). See also J.
M.G. Twentyman, The Organic Vision of Hlan Jaworksi (Richmond Hill, Surrey: New Atlantic Foundation, 1972).
47S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. J. Strachey (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1954), 357416.
48E. Jones, On the Nightmare (New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1951), 6970.
49 Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 19301934 by C.G. Jung, ed. C. Douglas, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1997), 1:168.
50M. Jacoby, Das Tier im Traum, Studium Generale 20, no. 3 (1967): Tiertrume haben in erster Linie die
Bedeutung, die im Menschlichen stndig inhrente Gefahr des Instinktverlustes zu kompensieren.
51Das Tier im Traum ist also ein Bild eines spezifischen Instinkverhaltens. (Ibid.)
52Hediger ( Psychology and Behaviour) writes, Man must declare war on mice, not only in zoos, but everywhere; we
have no choice, it is either mice or men Owing to their smaller size mice are able to get into places [and] hide there
and this is important bearing in mind that they carry disease As well as plague they can also carry typhus, severe
enteritis, leptospirosms and tularemia; they frequently carry salmonellosis and virus infections, also bad fungal diseases
The above list is by no means comprehensive
53R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954).
54T. Thass-Thienemann, The Interpretation of Language (New York: Aronson, 1968, 1973).
55Here, the ancient Christian moralistic idea of the animal skins or coats (see J. Danilou, La Colombe et la
tnbre dans la mystique Byzantine Ancienne, Eranos Yearbook 23 [1954]), which encase the spiritual essence of
human being in bestial clothing, ourselves enclosed in biological existence, is revalued by the Renaissance imagination.
The animal images become fantasies, vehicles for transporting our biological drivenness into differentiated patterns of
enactment and reflection.
56For a psychologizing of the term instinct, see my Re-Visioning Psychology (New York: Harper and Row, 1975),
24445, and my Essay on Pan, in Pan and the Nightmare (Putnam, Conn.: Spring Publications, 2007), xxiiixxvi.
57The differentiation of body by means of animal images is adumbrated in this passage from Jungs Zarathustra
seminar (3 June 1936): The body is the original animal condition, we are all animals in the body, and so we should have
an animal psychology in order to be able to live in it Since we have a body it is indispensable that we exist also as an
animal. ( Nietzsches Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 19341939 by C.G. Jung, ed. J.L. Jarrett, 2 vols.
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 2:967. This animal psychology would be to return the body to its
original animal condition, that is, to imagine and experience body events as animals although not in the fashion of
Jaworski, Jacoby, etc. Rather than a singleness of function (sheep equal herd instinct, etc.), we would experience any
zone and organ, any physical sensation and behavior with theriomorphic imagination; e.g., sometimes when I argue I am
as tightly armored as a crab, nipping and pinching; sometimes I am a lion imperious; at other times I act like a monkey,
chattering and escaping every which way. Muhammed Ali, when speaking of his boxing style, used theriomorphic
imagination for his bodily movements: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
58Le Roman voit donc l animus infrieur comme une espce de jungle, ou comme ces parcs dOrient remplis de
fauves pour chasses royales. Cest lesprit, soutenu par la volont, qui est alors le chasseur et le dompteur qui doit tuer
ou apprivoiser ces monstres de lme, liminer ou soumettre ces nergies qui lui sont trangres (The Roman thus
sees the lower animus like a species of the jungle or like these parks of the Orient filled with deer for royal hunts. It is the
spirit, supported by the will, which is then the hunter and the animal trainer who must kill or tame these monsters of the
soul, eliminate or subdue these energies that are foreign to it). (Y.A. Dauge, Le Barbare [Brussels: Collection Latomus,
1981], 6o6.)
59 CW 16:334.
60The reduction of each animal to the single meaning of a stereotypical trait also results from what Emile Mle calls the
mania for symbolism, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, trans. D. Nussey (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1958), 48. The symbolic view of thirteenth-century cathedral sculpture reading each beast and
composite creature to be symbolic of religious psychology makes use of the animal for subjectivist functions. But Mle
says the craftsmen were not carving animal symbols: they delighted in nature for its own sake. It was the animal itself
that inspired artistic invention. Thus the animals are so vivid and profound. They are not symbols but true images,
animals as they are, even if not lifelike copies from actual nature.
61H. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1961), 814 (Sacred Animals and
Otherness).
62Paulson, The Animal Guardian, 218.
63A. Portmann, Entlt die Natur den Menschen? Gesammelte Aufstze zur Biologie und Anthropologie (Munich: Piper
Verlag, 1971): Das Erscheinen ist wie das Erleben ein Grundmerkmal des Lebendigen. (84)
64Hier ist Selbstdarstellung in der reinsten Weise verwirklicht. Die Erscheinung ist das Werk einer ganz spezifischen
Plasmastruktur, sie ist ihr eigener Zweck. (Ibid., 86)
65P. Kugler, The Phonetic Imagination, Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought (1979), 126
28.
66Noah needed the ark to unite with it, to sustain the seed of all, as is written: to keep seed alive. The Zohar 1:59 b
(Pritzker Edition, vol. 1, trans. D.C. Matt [Stanford: Standford University Press, 2004], 341).
67J. Hillman, Alchemical Blue and the Unio Mentalis, Sulfur 1 (California Institute of Technology, 1981), 3350. See
also The Azure Vault: Caelum as Experience, in Alchemical Psychology, UE 5 (Putnam, Conn.: Spring Publications,
2011).
68Heroic stereotypes of mythical amplification (Hercules as paradigm) are precisely those which set animal and
human against each other. Giedion ( The Eternal Present, 273) writes: The age of the supremacy of the animal of the
natural order reaches back immeasurably Man then severed himself The first step in this severance was the
dethronement of the animal. Another approach to the world was evidenced in Greek myths. The animal is here dethroned:
dethroned forever A new figure arose: the hero The animals which appeared on the walls of the caverns bulls,
lions, snakes, boars, birds are transformed in the Greek myths [of Hercules] to fabulous man-hating monsters. A tragic
situation arises: a demi-god, himself in slavery, has to accomplish their destruction. There is no memory of that bond
which once held man and animal in one embrace. The emergence of the hero symbolized the end of the zoomorphic
epoch.
Abbreviations
CW = Collected Works of C. G. Jung, t rans. R.F.C. Hull, 20 vols. (Princet on, N.J.: Princet on
Universit y Press, 195379), cit ed by paragraph number unless indicat ed ot herwise.
MDR = C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded and edit ed by Aniela Jaff,
t rans. R. and C. Winst on (New York: Vint age Books, 1989).
UE = The Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman, 11 vols. (Put nam, Conn.:
Spring Publicat ions, 2004 ).
Table of Contents
Tit le Page
A Preface
1/ The Animal Kingdom in t he Human Dream
Abbreviat ions