Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/576

506 Lifted her skirt a little with its breeze And let a little of her ankles be seen, And the seashore became as bright as all the world."
 * (Neo-Grecian Folksong from Sanders: "Das Volksleben der Neugriechen," 1844, p. 81, cit. Zeitscrift des Vereines für Volkskunde, Jahrgang XII, 1902, p. 166.)

In the farm of Gymir I saw A lovely maiden coming toward me; From the brilliance of her arm glowed The sky and all the everlasting sea."
 * (From the Edda, tr. (into Ger.) by H. Gering, p. 53; Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Jahrgang XII, 1902, p. 167.)

Here, too, belong all the miraculous stories of cosmic events, phenomena occurring at the birth and death of heroes. (The Star of Bethlehem; earthquakes, the rending asunder of the temple hangings, etc., at the death of Christ.) The omnipotence of God is the manifest omnipotence of the libido, the only actual doer of wonders which we know. The symptom described by Freud, as the "omnipotence of thought" in Compulsion Neuroses arises from the "sexualizing" of the intellect. The historical parallel for this is the magical omnipotence of the mystic, attained by introversion. The "omnipotence of thought" corresponds to the identification with God of the paranoic, arrived at similarly through introversion.

70 Comparable to the mythological heroes who after their greatest deeds fall into spiritual confusion.

71 Here I must refer you to the blasphemous piety of Zinzendorf, which has been made accessible to us by the noteworthy investigation of Pfister. 72 Anah is really the beloved of Japhet, the son of Noah. She leaves him because of the angel. 73 The one invoked is really a star. Compare Miss Miller's poem.

74 Really an attribute of the wandering sun. 75 Compare Miss Miller's poem.

My poor life is gone, then having gained One raptured glance, I'll die content, For I the source of beauty, warmth and life Have in his perfect splendor once beheld."

76 The light-substance of God. 77 The light-substance of the individual soul. 78 The bringing together of the two light-substances shows their common origin; they are the symbols of the libido. Here they are figures of speech. In earlier times they were doctrines. According to Mechthild von Magdeburg the soul is made out of love ("Das fliessende LIcht der Gottheit," herausgegeben von Escherich, Berlin 1909). 79 Compare what is said above about the snake symbol of the libido.