Concerning beheadingand I would remind you that this is one of the symbolic images describing the unio mentalisJung has this to say in CW14: par. 730 :
Beheading is significant symbolically as the separation of the “understanding” from the “great suffering and grief” which nature inflicts on the soul. It is an emancipation of the “cogitatio” which is situated in the head, a freeing of the soul from the “trammels of nature.” Its purpose is to bring about, as in Dorn, a unio mentalis “in the overcoming of the body.” ( CW14: par. 730 )
BEHEADING REPRESENTS THE
EXTRACTION OF THE ROTUNDUM
Another way of seeing beheading symbolism is that it represents the extraction of the rotundumthe round elementfrom the empirical man. The head is the round element and the beheading, then, extracts that round element. The term caput corvi (the head of the raven) and the term caput mortuum (death's head) were used in alchemy to refer to the residue left behind after the distillation or sublimation of a substance
ML p.303MIND MUST BE SEPARATED
FROM THE BODY
The unio mentalis is explicitly connected with death.In CW14: par. 671 , Jung says: “The mindmust be separated from the bodywhich is equivalent to `voluntary death.' ” Decapitation results in death, and the separation of the soul from the body is accompanied by death. It is highly significant that the earliest forms of religious expression that we know, and what I consider to be the earliest manifestations of man's encounter with the autonomous psyche, involve funeral symbolism. Specifically, I think of Egyptian mortuary symbolism which was the origin of alchemy. It was an attempt to create an immortal body by embalming
ML p.303`BODILY APPETITES FREED
FROM HEART'S AFFECTIONS'
Jung continues: The aim of this separation was to free the mind from the influence of the “bodily appetites and the heart's affections,” and to establish a spiritual position which is supraordinate to the turbulent sphere of the body. This leads at first to a dissociation of the personality and a violation of the merely natural man. ( CW14: par. 671 )
This preliminary step, in itself a clear blend of Stoic philosophy and Christian psychology, is indispensable for the differentiation of consciousness. Modern psychotherapy makes use of the same procedure when it objectifies the affects and instincts and confronts consciousness with them. ( CW14: par. 672 )
EXTRACTION OF THE CAELUM
FROM THE BODY
I think that's a very important passage which makes the nature of the unio mentalis crystal clear. Beheading symbolism represents the extraction of the caelumthat heavenly stufffrom the body, because the head is the heaven of the body so to speak. It is the round thing. And whenever decapitation symbolism comes up in dreams you can know this process is going on. That immediately orients you because it is alarming at first when you naively encounter this kind of symbolism. You think, “What terrible dissociation process is going on?” and you want to sew them back together again right away
ML p.304SYMBOLISM OF DISMEMBERMENT
The Orpheus myth is a good example of beheading symbolism, and reminds us that the imagery of decapitation belongs to the larger symbolism of dismemberment. This links it to a transformation mystery, which is what the symbolism of dismemberment is all about. Let me remind you of the relevant aspects of the Orpheus myth
ML p.305THE ORPHEUS MYTH
Orpheus was the inventor of music who could tame wild beasts by playing his lyre. His wife, Eurydice, is bitten by a serpent, dies and goes to the Underworld, and Orpheus travels to the Underworld to rescue her. He almost succeeds but he looks back at the last minute, which he had been forbidden to do, and thus he loses her. Then, in his grief, he comes across a band of raving maenads who dismember him. His head is cast into the river and goes floating down, singing. It crosses the sea and, still singing, lands on the island of Lesbos where a shrine is built for it. The head is installed as an oracle and continues to prophesy.. The conclusion is that he's turned into an eternal prophetic oracle and thus we can think of Orpheus as an early symbolic representation of the unio mentalis
ML p.305ORPHISM AS A MAJOR RELIGION
A major Greek religion was called Orphismlargely because one of the features of Orpheus's life was his descent to the Underworld. That amounted to an initiation into the mysteries and thus the mysteries were given his namethe Orphic Mysteries
ML p.305Let me give you a couple of examples of this decapitation symbolism. Many years ago I had this dream:
ML p.305Dream:
Crystal Head
There was a beautiful crystal head which was to be attached to a little girl. An operation was to be performed to remove her head and replace it with a crystal head. A famous surgeon by the name of Dr. Knight was to do the operation
DREAM COMMENTARY
Well, if you take that dream just from the personalistic standpoint, it indicates a very dubious relation to the little anima figure. The little girl is going to be decapitated and have her head replaced with a crystal head. But if you interpret it in archetypal terms, this little girl is going to go through something of the same experience that the black Shulamite went through in our earlier text; her head was turned to gold
ML p.305Here's another dream of my own:
ML p.305Dream:
Crystal Sphere joined with Wood
A patient brings me a dream in which there is an image of a crystal sphere that is joining with a piece of woodthey're coming togethera piece of wood that had a certain receptacle in it to lodge the crystal sphere. As they come together, great heat is produced. In the dream, the patient who had this dream was quite indifferent to it and I found myself expounding vigorously on the meaning of “his” dream. “You should consider this dream as very important,” I say. “Wood is matter, flesh, vulnerable organic material, it is a product of the life process. And the crystal sphere is eternal, immortal perfection. The sphere comes from heaven and joins the wood from earth, and this is a picture of man who must carry this intolerable burden of opposites within himself”
DREAM COMMENTARY
This is what I say in the dream, you see. One should pay attention to such things; what you say in your dream is not something you already know in full consciousness. If you did, you would not have to dream it. So, as with all occasions when one finds oneself giving advice or counsel to others, one should listen to that advice and take it oneself
ML p.306Some of my associations to this image were Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, and St. Christopher carrying Christ as a sphere (fig. 025.5) . I also thought of the process of making fire by rubbing sticks together (two sticks as opposites). And I must say I also thought of stage two of the coniunctio
ML p.306ML Pg 306 (n) FigNo025.5
St. Christopher carrying Christ as a sphere
Detail of oil painting by the Master of Messkirch (?). In Edinger, Ego and Architect, picture 29