Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/275

 is very clear. The mystic material for it is the immutable model of the Sun's course. The Sun sets periodically, but does not die. It hides in the womb of the sea or in a subterranean cave,[28] and in the morning is "born again," complete. The language in which this astronomic occurrence is clothed is one of clear symbolism; the Sun returns into the mother's womb, and after some time is again born. Of course, this event is properly an incestuous act, of which, in mythology, clear traces are still retained, not the least of which is the circumstance that the dying and resurrected gods are the lovers of their own mothers or have generated themselves through their own mothers. Christ as the "God becoming flesh" has generated himself through Mary; Mithra has done the same. These Gods are unmistakable Sun-gods, for the Sun also does this, in order to again renew himself. Naturally, it is not to be assumed that astronomy came first and these conceptions of gods afterwards; the process was, as always, inverted, and it is even true that primitive magic charms of rebirth, baptism, superstitious usages of all sorts, concerning the cure of the sick, etc., were projected into the heavens. These youths were born from the cave (the womb of mother earth), like the Sun-gods, in a new era, and this was the way they vanquished death. In this far they were immortal. It is now interesting to see how the Koran comes, after long ethical contemplations in the course of the same sura, to the following passage, which is of especial significance for the origin of the Chidher myth. For this reason I quote the Koran literally: