The archetype of the Self has, functionally, the significance of a ruler of the inner world, i.e., of the collective unconscious:
The Self, as a symbol of wholeness, is a coincidentia oppositorum, and therefore contains light and darkness simultaneously (cf. fig. 039), (fig. 258.09), and (fig. 258.60)
CW5 ¶ 57616 CW5 Ser: 2.1 Par 576 (a) FigNo 039
16.1 CW5 Ser: 2.1 Par 576 (a) FigNo 258.09
17 CW5 Ser: 2.2 Par 576 (a) FigNo 258.60
In the Christ-figure the opposites which are united in the archetype are polarized into the “light” son of God on the one hand and the devil on the other. The original unity of opposites is still discernible in the original unity of Satan and Yahweh. Christ and the dragon of the Anti-christ lie very close together so far as their historical development and cosmic significance are concerned
CW5 ¶ 576The dragon legend concealed under the myth of the Anti-christ is an essential part of the hero's life and is therefore immortal
CW5 ¶ 576Nowhere in the latter-day myths are the paired opposites so palpably close together as in the figures of Christ and Anti-christ. (Here I would refer the reader to Merezhkovsky's admirable account of this problem in his novel Leonardo da Vinci)
CW5 ¶ 576It is a convenient rationalistic conceit to say that the dragon is only “artificial,” thus banishing the mysterious gods with a word
CW5 ¶ 576Schizophrenic patients often make use of this mechanism for apotropaic purposes. “It's all a fake,” they say, “all artificially made up.” The following dream of a schizophrenic is typical:
CW5 ¶ 576Dream:
Sun and Moon made of Oiled Paper
He is sitting in a dark room which has only one small window, through which he can see the sky. The sun and moon appear, but they are made of oiled paper
DREAM COMMENTARY
Sun and moon, as divine equivalents of the parent archetype, possess a tremendous psychic power that has to be weakened apotropaically, because the patient is already far too much under the power of the unconscious
CW5 ¶ 576