Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/273

 In a more distant past a sign of this kind possessed as great a significance as the dung of animals to indicate the direction taken. Simple monuments ("little stone figures") have taken the place of this perishable mark.

It is noteworthy that Miss Miller quotes another case, where a name suddenly obtruded itself, parallel to the emerging into consciousness of Chiwantopel, namely, A-ha-ma-ra-ma, with the feeling that it dealt with something Assyrian.[24] As a possible source of this, there occurred to her "Asurabama, who made cuneiform bricks,"[25] those imperishable documents made from clay: the monuments of the most ancient history. If it were not emphasized that the bricks are "cuneiform," then it might mean ambiguously "wedged-shaped bricks," which is more suggestive of our interpretation than that of the author.

Miss Miller remarks that besides the name "Asurabama" she also thought of "Ahasuerus" or "Ahasverus." This phantasy leads to a very different aspect of the problem of the unconscious personality. While the previous materials betrayed to us something of the infantile theory of creation, this phantasy opens up a vista into the dynamics of the unconscious creation of personality. Ahasver is, as is well known, the Wandering Jew; he is characterized by endless and restless wanderings until the end of the world. The fact that the author has thought of this particular name justifies us in following this trail. The legend of Ahasver, the first literary traces of which belong to the thirteenth century, seems to be of Occidental origin, and belongs to those ideas which possess inde