creative and procreative libido

Aspects of libido are represented in numerous ways:

(a)

Here the devil again puts into Faust's hand the marvelous tool [the key], as once before when, in the form of the black dog, he introduced himself to Faust as part of that power which would ever work evil, but engenders good ( Faust, Part I, trans. by Wayne, p. 75, modified )

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LIBIDO AS CREATIVE AND PROCREATIVE

WITH INTUITIVE FACULTY

(b)

What he is describing here is the libido, which is not only creative and procreative, but possesses an intuitive faculty, a strange power to “smell the right place,” almost as if it were a live creature with an independent life of its own (which is why it is so easily personified). It is purposive, like sexuality itself, a favorite object of comparison

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THE `REALM OF THE MOTHERS'

(c)

The “realm of the Mothers” has not a few connections with the womb (fig. 012) with the matrix, which frequently symbolizes the creative aspect of the unconscious

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(c)

110 CW5 Ser: 4 Par 182 (c) FigNo 012

LIBIDO AS GOOD / BAD,

MORALLY NEUTRAL

(d)

This libido is a force of nature, good and bad at once, or morally neutral. Uniting himself with it, Faust succeeds in accomplishing his real life's work, at first with evil results and then for the benefit of mankind

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TRIPOD AS HERMETIC VESSEL WHERE

ROYAL MARRIAGE IS CONSUMMATED

(e)

In the realm of the Mothers he finds the tripod, the Hermetic vessel in which the “royal marriage” is consummated

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PHALLIC WAND

(f)

But he needs the phallic wand in order to bring off the greatest wonder of allthe creation of Paris and Helen

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TOOL IN FAUST'S HAND

(g)

The insignificant-looking tool in Faust's hand is the dark creative power of the unconscious, which reveals itself to those who follow its dictates and is indeed capable of working miracles

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PARADOX APPEARS VERY ANCIENT

(h)

This paradox appears to be very ancient, for the Shvetashvatara Upanishad ( 19, 20 ) goes on to say of the dwarf-god, the cosmic purusha:

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(h-1)

Without feet, without hands, he moves, he grasps; eyeless he sees, earless he hears; he knows all that is to be known, yet there is no knower of him. Men call him the Primordial Person, the Cosmic Man.Smaller than small, greater than great

(i)

The phallus often stands for the creative divinity, Hermes being an excellent example. It is sometimes thought of as an independent being, an idea that is found not only in antiquity but in the drawings of children and artists of our own day

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PHALLIC CHARACTERISTICS IN

SEERS, ARTISTS, WONDER-WORKERS

(j)

So we ought not to be surprised if certain phallic characteristics are also found in the seers, artists, and wonder-workers of mythology. Hephaestus, Wieland the Smith, and Mani (the founder of Manichaeism, famous also for his artistic gifts), had crippled feet

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MAGICAL, GENERATIVE POWER

OF THE FOOT

(k)

The foot, as I shall explain in due course, is supposed to possess a magical generative power. The ancient seer Melampus, who is said to have introduced the cult of the phallus, had a very peculiar nameBlackfoot, and it also seems characteristic of seers to be blind

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UGLINESS AND DEFORMITY

(l)

Ugliness and deformity are especially characteristic of those mysterious chthonic gods, the sons of Hephaestus, the Cabiri, to whom mighty wonder-working powers were ascribed (fig. 013)

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(l)

111 CW5 Ser: 15 Par 183 (l) FigNo 013

(m)

Their cult was closely bound up with that of the ithyphallic Hermes, who according to Herodotus was brought to Attica by the Pelasgians. They were called,`great gods'

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IDAEAN DACTYLS

(n)

Their near relatives were the Idaean dactyls (fingers or else Tom Thumbs), to whom the mother of the gods had taught the blacksmith's art (“Follow it down, it leads you to the Mothers!”)

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(o)

They [Idaean dactyls] were the first Wise Men, the teachers of Orpheus, and it was they who invented the Ephesian magic formulae and the musical rhythms

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(p)

The characteristic disparity which we noted in the Upanishads and Faust crops up again here, since the giant Hercules was said to be an Idaean dactyl. Also the colossal Phrygians, Rhea's technicians, were dactyls

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THE PILEUS

(q)

The two Dioscuri are related to the Cabiri; they too wear the queer little pointed hat, the pileus, which is peculiar to these mysterious gods and was thenceforward perpetuated as a secret mark of identification. Attis and Mithras both wore the pileus (fig. 020) . It had become the traditional headgear of our infantile chthonic gods today, the pixies and goblins

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(q)

112 CW5 Ser: 20.1 Par 183 (q) FigNo 020