Professor Jung: I am told that Dr. Bennet has brought some pictures by a patient. Will he be so kind as to show them:
FV Picture
This picture (Figure 14) is meant to represent a bowl or vase. Of course it is very clumsily expressed and is a mere attempt, a suggestion of a vase or bowl. The motif of the vessel is itself an archetypal image which has a certain purpose, and I can prove from this picture what the purpose is
CW18 ¶ 407PICTURE CHARACTERISTIC OF A
SCHIZOPHRENIC CONDITION
A vessel is an instrument for containing things. It contains for instance liquids, and prevents them from getting dispersed. Our German word for vessel is Gefäss, which is the noun of fassen, that is, to set, to contain, to take hold of. The word Fassung means the setting, and also, metaphorically, composure, to remain collected. So the vessel in this picture indicates the movement of containing in order to gather in and to hold together. You have to hold something together which otherwise would fall asunder. From the way this picture is composed, and from certain features in it, it is obvious that the psychology of this man contains a number of disparate elements. It is a picture characteristic of a schizophrenic condition. I do not know the case at all, but Dr. Bennet confirms that my conclusion is correct
CW18 ¶ 407BREAKING LINES
You see the disparate elements all over the picture; there are a number of things which are not motivated and which don't belong together. Moreover, you see peculiar lines dividing the field. These lines are characteristic of a schizophrenic mentality; I call them the breaking lines. When a schizophrenic paints a picture of himself, he naturally expresses the schizophrenic split in his own mental structure, and so you find these breaking lines which often go right through a particular figure, like the breaking lines in a mirror. In this picture, the figures themselves show no breaking lines; they only go all over the field
CW18 ¶ 407TRYING TO FIND A
CONTAINER FOR EVERYTHING
This man, then, tries to gather in all the disparate elements into the vessel. The vessel is meant to be the receptacle for his whole being, for all the incompatible units. If he tried to gather them into his ego, it would be an impossible task, because the ego can be identical only with one part at a time. So he indicates by the symbol of the vessel that he is trying to find a container for everything, and therefore he gives a hint at a non-ego centre by that sort of ball or globe in the middle
CW18 ¶ 408AN ATTEMPT AT SELF-CURE
The picture is an attempt at self-cure. It brings all the disparate elements into the light, and it also tries to put them together into that vessel. This idea of a receptacle is an archetypal idea. You find it everywhere, and it is one of the central motifs of unconscious pictures. It is the idea of the magic circle which is drawn round something that has to be prevented from escaping or protected against hostile influences
CW18 ¶ 409THE MAGIC CIRCLE
The magic circle as an apotropaic charm is an archaic idea which you still find in folklore. For instance, if a man digs for a treasure, he draws the magic circle round the field in order to keep the devil out. When the ground-plan of a city was set out, there used to be a ritual walk or ride round the circumference in order to protect the place within. In some Swiss villages, it is still the custom for the priest and the town council to ride round the fields when the blessing is administered for the protection of the harvest. In the centre of the magic circle or sacred precinct is the temple
CW18 ¶ 409TEMPLE OF BOROBUDUR
One of the most wonderful examples of this idea is the temple of Borobudur in Java. The walk round, the circumambulatio, is done in a spiral; the pilgrims pass the figures of all the different lives of the Buddha, until on the top there is the invisible Buddha, the Buddha yet to come. The ground-plan of Borobudur is a circle within a square. This structure is called in Sanskrit a mandala. The word means a circle, particularly a magic circle. In the East, you find the mandala not only as the ground-plan of temples, but as pictures in the temples, or drawn for the day of certain religious festivals. In the very centre of the mandala there is the god, or the symbol of divine energy, the diamond thunderbolt. Round this innermost circle is a cloister with four gates. Then comes a garden, and round this there is another circle which is the outer circumference
CW18 ¶ 409MANDALA AS A HOLY PLACE
The symbol of the mandala has exactly this meaning of a holy place, a temenos, to protect the centre. And it is a symbol which is one of the most important motifs in the objectivation of unconscious images. It is a means of protecting the centre of the personality from being drawn out and from being influenced from outside
CW18 ¶ 410ORIGINAL PICTURES MUST BE
GIVEN BACK TO THE PATIENT
The pictures should be given back to the patient because they are very important. You can get copies; patients like to do copies for the doctor. But he should leave the originals with the patients, because they want to look at them; and when they look at them they feel that their unconscious is expressed. The objective form works back on them and they become enchanted. The suggestive influence of the picture reacts on the psychological system of the patient and induces the same effect which he put into the picture. That is the reason for idols, for the magic use of sacred images, of icons. They cast their magic into our system and put us right, provided we put ourselves into them. If you put yourself into the icon, the icon will speak to you. Take a Lamaic mandala which has a Buddha in the centre, or a Shiva, and, to the extent that you can put yourself into it, it answers and comes into you. It has a magic effect
CW18 ¶ 413