Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/21

 PRIMITIVE MAN AMD ENVIRONMENT 177

beliefs of the Arunta there is a huge cave deep in the earth which is full of "erintja" demons who sometimes visit the surface of the earth and do all the harm they can to mankind,* If we remember how evidently the concept of a cave is connected with that ot childbirth in the "ertnatulunga" ideas of the Arunta, we shall perhaps not be on the wrong track if we extend the inter- pretation of the cave as the womb to this second cavity below the earth. It is from the unconscious depths of human nature that the demons, the representatives of the repressed libidinous impulses, rise to the surface where they often make havoc of the conscious personality of man. Man is the measure of all things, and it is in his own body that we must search for the origins of his conceptions of the universe. In India we iind the idea of "microcosmos in macrocosmo" carried through just as systemati- cally as in mediaeval Europe.' The head as the seat of intellect IS thought to stand under the influence of the moon, the stomach corresponds to the sun, and so on.* All myths are true, only we must know the way to read them.* In this case we have again to do with the simple mechanism of reversal: it is not certain regions of the human body that are under the influence of cosmic regions, it is rather the organism of man which deter- mines, not of course the real state of things in the universe, but man's ideas of the Above and the Below. The erect stature of man- contains the explanation oj the "Heaven" above as well as the

» Strehlow: Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stamme in Zentral-Australien, 1907 I, S. 11. Cj. K. Eylmana: Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Sttdaustralien 1908, S. 185.

» Cf. P. Deussen; Sechzig Upanishads des Veda, 1905. XX. Anhang Upanishads des Oupnekhat I. Bark he soukt, S. 830. (The Uaiverse created out of the body of Man.) For mediaeval ideas Cj. W. Schultz: Dokumente der Gnosis, 1910, S. 2; H. Silberer: Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik, 1914, S. 98, 113.

» Schanz: "Zur Psychologie der Hindus", Globus, 1884, XLV, S. 200. "Die drei psychologischen Regionen im menschlichen Kfirper sind (1) agnimandala, die Feuerregion, das heiCt der untere Teil des Unterleibes, in welchem das Fewer regieren soil (2) aditja-mandala, die Sonnenregion, das ist der Magen und das Herz, darin die Sonne ihren Sitz und besonderen Einflufi habe (3) chandra-mandala, die Mondregion, das ist der Kopf und die Schultem, worin der Mond regieren soil."

past". "W.H.R. Rivers: Dreams and primitive Culture. Reprmted from the Bulletin ef John Rylands Librarf, Vol. IV, 1918, p. 26.
 * Cf. "The myth is a means of recording knowledge of the unconscious