The Lion
Nickname unavailable
Lion in Jungian thinking.(Or mythical writng in general.) I'm
particularly curious about the ways in which Christ takes on a
presumably pagan image as the Lion of Judah. And I'd be interested to
hear what thoughts-if any-this group might have about the Narnia
stories.
Hopefully
Terry
M Winther
It depends on the context what the lion symbolizes. It can denote the
devouring aspect of the unconscious, including a ferocious
instinctuality. M-L von Franz (Der Schatten und das Böse im Märchen)
says that the lion can mean the devil. But, in view of its royal
quality, it can also denote the ruling principle of
consciousness. It is a sun symbol and an old equivalent of the sun
god, hence connected with the Christ. The Christ has in comparative
religion been interpreted as a sun god who shines during the day,
dies at sunset , being swallowed up by darkness, and rising again
at dawn. I don't know the Narnia story, however.
Mats Winther
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Nickname unavailable
view of Narnia,it seems the lion image equates to your notion of the
ruling principle of consciousness. Aslan ( the Lion) does seem to
represent the Freudian ego- another way of describng your organising
principle, I think. He also seems to have to be male in a rather old
fashioned way. He intervenes at times of crisis, plays occasionally
but is not present on a day to day basis. In the Narnia stories he
represents Christ in a way that makes it very difficult to get hold of
his unconscious meanings. (Or should that be the other way round? That
we are so familiar with a particular view of Christ that it is
difficult to think about his unconscious meaning to us?)
Thanks for the reply.
Yours
Terry
M Winther
If it's a children's book by a modern author then one can't always
deduce deep meanings. M-L von Franz says that the best source of
archetypal significance is the folklore fairytales. These are naive
products of the unconscious and are therefore unaffected by conscious
standpoints. However, one can sometimes find archetypal meanings in
modern authors. Sometimes they consciously shape their characters and
give them a symbolical meaning, but that's less interesting, I think.
It is curious that the author of Narnia should choose a lion as a
helper of mankind. After all, it's a man-eater that kills many human
beings every year. It is a very cruel animal that kills little lion
cubs if they belong to another male. But perhaps such books compensate
for our fright of instinctual and ferocious nature. I once saw a
children's cartoon in which a dragon refused to fight against the
knight. Instead they staged a mock fight before the people, and then
the dragon pretended to be killed. Then he stood up and moved into the
human city where he recited bad poetry to the people. Somehow this
portrays the force of nature, the dragon, as an unconscious but
friendly force. This is different than before when dangerous nature
had to be broken and triumphed over. The dragon, as a symbol of wild
nature and the forces of the unconscious, is today less dangerous.
Psychology makes us capable of relating to the unconscious, and the
modern standpoint toward nature is different. Today we don't arrange
lion hunts anymore, we arrange lion excursions and bring our cameras
instead. In alchemy the lion is a common equivalent of the dragon,
e.g.the "green lion".
Mats Winther
M Winther
> ....In alchemy the lion is a common equivalent of the dragon,
> e.g. the "green lion".
C.G. Jung says in Alchemical Studies, pp.227-8 (notes removed) :
One of the manifestations of Mercurius in the alchemical process of
transformation is the lion, now green and now red. Khunrath calls this
transformation "luring the lion out of Saturn's mountain cave." From
ancient times the lion was associated with Saturn. Khunrath calls him
"the lion of the Catholic tribe," paraphrasing the "lion of tribe of
Judah" - an allegory of Christ. He calls Saturn "lion green and red."
In Gnosticism Saturn is the high archon, the lion-headed Ialdabaoth,
meaning "child of chaos." But in alchemy the child of chaos is
Mercurius. The relation to and identity with Saturn is important
because Saturn is not only a 'maleficus' but actually the
dwelling-place of the devil himself. Even as the highest archon and
demiurge his Gnostic reputation was not the best. According to one
Cabalistic source, Beelzebub was associated with him. Mylius says that
if Mercurius were to be purified, then Lucifer would fall from heaven.
A contemporary marginal note in a seventeenth-century treatise in my
possession explains the term sulphur, the masculine principle of
Mercurius, as 'diabolus.' If Mercurius is not exactly the Evil One
himself, he at least contains him - that is, he is morally neutral,
good and evil, or as Khunrath says: "Good with the good, evil with the
evil." His nature is more exactly defined, however, if one conceives
him as a process that begins with evil and ends with good. A rather
deplorable but picturesque poem in Verus Hermes (1620) sum-marizes the
process as follows:
A weakling babe, a greybeard old,
Surnamed the Dragon: me they hold
In darkest dungeon languishing
That I may be reborn a king.
A fiery sword makes me to smart,
Death gnaws my flesh and bones apart.
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Mats Winther
Nickname unavailable
Your point about the rather sanitised material found in contemporary
children's books is a fair one,Mats. Bettelheim makes a similar point
about the value of "proper" fairy tales. They don't shy away from the
Shadow side of people-and are thus quite reassuring for a child who is
well aware of his shadow. It my objection to Lewis' Narnia that he
stays in Klein's paranoid-schizoid position with little or no
integration of Shadow.
I like your idea of a "green" lion -although I'm not sure who has
changed. Certainly not the lion! (Why would or should he?) It is also
one of the tensions with Christianity-amongst other religions- that it
demonises the shadow and disavows it.Difficult though the id might be,
it does contain much of the energy we need.
I'm intrigued by your next post. Any semantic links between Saturn and
Satan?
Yours
Terry
M Winther
"Nickname unavailable" <te...@dancingbears.co.uk> skrev i meddelandet
news:081f56e9-ef3b-462d...@h23g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
>Your point about the rather sanitised material found in contemporary
>children's books is a fair one,Mats. Bettelheim makes a similar point
>about the value of "proper" fairy tales. They don't shy away from the
>Shadow side of people-and are thus quite reassuring for a child who is
>well aware of his shadow. It my objection to Lewis' Narnia that he
>stays in Klein's paranoid-schizoid position with little or no
>integration of Shadow.
>
>I like your idea of a "green" lion -although I'm not sure who has
>changed. Certainly not the lion! (Why would or should he?) It is also
>one of the tensions with Christianity-amongst other religions- that it
>demonises the shadow and disavows it.Difficult though the id might be,
>it does contain much of the energy we need.
>
>I'm intrigued by your next post. Any semantic links between Saturn and
>Satan?
>
>Yours
>Terry
No, I think Satan is from hebrew 'shaitan', which means 'the opposer',
or something. But there is a symbolical connection between Saturn and
Mercurius. Saturn is often viewed as Mercurius Senex, i.e. the Mercurius
as an old man. In alchemy Mercurius is otherwise often viewed as a
child-size god. Saturn is sometimes connected with carnal man, whereas
Jupiter often represents spiritual man. The problem with Christianity is
that it contents itself with aping after Christ, i.e. it suffices to be
a Christian on the surface and to adopt a Christian demeanour. It is
obvious that our's is not a truly Christian civilization. One only has
to look at the horrifying 20th century to realize that it is barbarous
under the pretentious surface. Christianity has disavowed the *inner*
way of being a Christian, i.e. to be like Christ on the inside, thus to
allow one's inner soul to take part in the Christian mystery. Instead it
supports the imitative way in which people try to be like Christ on
the *outside*, i.e. saying well-meaning things, helping the poor, and
to be superficially good. C.G. Jung says that the 'Imitatio Christi', is
a deplorable phenomenon. The way of imitating Christ on the outside
very much defines Western Christianity; i.e. to just go around and pretend
to be good, saying well-meaning things that lack substance. Such people
accumulate an obnoxious shadow. One should keep away from such people
because their shadow will always damage the surrounding, one way or the
other. In Sweden the protestant church is regarded as the country's
worst working place. The social situation is unbearable to many people,
so many are put on the sick-list. Bullying is a common problem, and
employees now and then commit suicide. Priests notoriously take up
sexual relations with frail people who are searching for help. Year
after year these problems surface in the media. But they can't be dealt
with because evil does not exist as long as we pretend to be good on the
surface. So when the abusing priest smiles and is nice to people, it's
like his putrid evil has vanished into thin air. A smiling person who
says nice things is a good person. It's as simple as that in our
hypocritical culture. I don't understand how adult people are capable of
this unbounded naiveté. It's like the conscious level of kindergarten
children.
Mats Winther
Nickname unavailable
> "Nickname unavailable" <te...@dancingbears.co.uk> skrev i meddelandetnews:081f56e9-ef3b-462d...@h23g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
This thread is getting increasingly long! I'd been meaning to reply
for some days, Mats, but my wife has been hogging the computer. I take
your point about the corrupt nature of the Church but want to add some
caveats. Certainly one can find corrupt priests- but also one finds
clerics who do genuinely practice the imitation of Christ. any
organisation contains both Light and Shadow, surely? Having spent 25
years in the NHS I've come across my fair share of Light and Shadow-
and have acted out from both positions in my time. Are there Jungian
writers commenting on Organisational dynamics- I assume so? how do
they characterise organisations?
Yours
Terry