The preparation of fire is an immemorial custom, harmless enough in itself, which soon ceased to have anything very mysterious about it:
But there was always a tendency to prepare fire in a mysterious ceremonial manner on special occasionsjust as with ritual eating and drinkingand to do it according to prescribed rules from which no one dared to differ
CW5 ¶ 250This ritual serves to remind us of the original numinosity of fire-making, but apart from that it has no practical significance. The anamnesis of fire-making is on a level with the recollection of the ancestors among primitives and of the gods at a more civilized stage
CW5 ¶ 250FIRE-MAKING FROM THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW
From the psychological point of view the ceremony has the significance of a meaningful institution, inasmuch as it represents a clearly defined procedure for canalizing the libido
CW5 ¶ 250It has, in fact, the functional value of a paradigm, and its purpose is to show us how we should act when the libido gets blocked. What we call the “blocking of libido” is, for the primitive, a hard and concrete fact: his life ceases to flow, things lose their glamour, plants, animals, and men no longer prosper
CW5 ¶ 250The ancient Chinese philosophy of the I Ching devised some brilliant images for this state of affairs. Modern man, in the same situation, experiences a standstill (“I am stuck”), a loss of energy and enjoyment (“the zestlibidohas gone out of life”), or a depression
CW5 ¶ 250One frequently has to tell the patient what is happening to him, for modern man's powers of introspection leave much to be desired
CW5 ¶ 250If, even today, the new fire is kindled at Eastertide, it is in commemoration of the redemptive and saving significance of the first fire-boring. In this way man wrested a secret from naturethe Promethean theft of fire. He made himself guilty of an unlawful intervention, incorporating a fragment of the age-old unconscious into the darkness of his mind. With this theft he appropriated something precious and offended against the gods
CW5 ¶ 250Anyone who knows the primitive's fear of innovations and their unforeseen consequences can imagine the uncertainty and uneasy conscience which such a discovery would arouse
CW5 ¶ 250This primordial experience finds an echo in the widespread motif of robbery (sun-cattle of Geryon, apples of the Hesperides, herb of immortality). And it is worth remembering that in the cult of Diana at Aricia [Lake Nemi], only he could become her priest who plucked the golden bough from the sacred grove of the goddess
CW5 ¶ 250SEXUAL ASPECT OF RITUAL
FIRE-MAKING IN INDIA
The pramantha, or instrument of the manthana (fire-sacrifice), is conceived under a purely sexual aspect in India
CW5 ¶ 210The fire-stick being the phallus or man, and the bored wood underneath the vulva or woman
CW5 ¶ 210The fire that results from the boring is the child, the divine son Agni (fig. 258.13b) . The two pieces of wood are ritually known as pururavas and urvasi, and, when personified, are thought of as man and woman
CW5 ¶ 21067 CW5 Ser: 17 Par 210 (l) FigNo 258.13b
The fire is born from the genitals of the woman. Weber gives the following account of the fire-producing ceremony:
CW5 ¶ 210A sacrificial fire is kindled by rubbing two fire-sticks together
CW5 ¶ 210One of the fire-sticks is taken up with the words: “Thou art the birthplace of fire,” and two blades of grass are placed upon it: “Ye are the two testicles”
CW5 ¶ 210The priest then places on them the adhararani (the underlying piece of wood), saying: “Thou art Urvasi,” and anoints the uttararani (uppermost piece) with butter: “Thou art the power” (semen)
CW5 ¶ 210This is then placed on the adhararani, with the words: “Thou art Pururavas.” Rubbing them together three times the priest says: “I rub thee with the Gayatrimetrum: I rub thee with the Trishtubhmetrum: I rub thee with the Jagatimetrum” ( Weber, Indische Studien, I, p. 197, cited in Kuhn, p. 71 )
CW5 ¶ 210The sexual symbolism is unmistakable. We find the same idea and symbolism in a hymn of the Rig-Veda
CW5 ¶ 211These examples, coming from different periods of history and from different peoples, prove the existence of a widespread tendency to equate fire-making with sexuality
CW5 ¶ 213DEEP-ROOTED MEMORY
OF FIRE-BORING
The ceremonial or magical repetition of this age-old discovery shows how persistently the human mind clings to the old forms, and how-deep rooted is the memory of fire-boring
CW5 ¶ 213