The abandonment of the child is a special aspect of the phenomenology of the child archetype:
Abandonment, exposure, danger, etc. are all elaborations of the “child's” insignificant beginnings and of its mysterious and miraculous birth. This statement describes a certain psychic experience of a creative nature, whose object is the emergence of a new and as yet unknown content
CW9.1 ¶ 285In the psychology of the individual there is always, at such moments, an agonizing situation of conflict from which there seems to be no way outat least for the conscious mind, since as far as this is concerned, tertium non datur
CW9.1 ¶ 285UNCONSCIOUS ALWAYS CREATES
AN IRRATIONAL THIRD THING
But out of this collision of opposites the unconscious psyche always creates a third thing of an irrational nature, which the conscious mind neither expects nor understands. It presents itself in a form that is neither a straight “yes” nor a straight “no,” and is consequently rejected by both. For the conscious mind knows nothing beyond the opposites and, as a result, has no knowledge of the thing that unites them
CW9.1 ¶ 285Since, however, the solution of the conflict through the union of opposites is of vital importance, and is moreover the very thing that the conscious mind is longing for, some inkling of the creative act, and of the significance of it, nevertheless gets through
CW9.1 ¶ 285THE NUMINOUS
CHARACTER OF THE `CHILD'
From this comes the numinous character of the “child.” A meaningful but unknown content always has a secret fascination for the conscious mind. The new configuration is a nascent whole; it is on the way to wholeness, at least in so far as it excels in “wholeness” the conscious mind when torn by opposites and surpasses it in completeness. For this reason all uniting symbols have a redemptive significance
CW9.1 ¶ 285ABANDONED `CHILD' EMERGES
AS A SYMBOLIC CONTENT
Out of this situation the abandoned “child” emerges as a symbolic content, manifestly separated or even isolated from its background (the mother), but sometimes including the mother in its perilous situation, threatened on the one hand by the negative attitude of the conscious mind and on the other by the horror vacui of the unconscious, which is quite ready to swallow up all its progeny, since it produces them only in play, and destruction is an inescapable part of its play
CW9.1 ¶ 286NOTHING WELCOMES THE
BIRTH OF THE NEW CHILD
Nothing in all the world welcomes this new birth, although it is the most precious fruit of Mother Nature herself, the most pregnant with the future, signifying a higher stage of self-realization. That is why Nature, the world of the instincts, takes the “child” under its wing: it is nourished or protected by animals
CW9.1 ¶ 286ABANDONMENT OF A CHILD AS
A NECESSARY CONDITION
`Child' means something evolving towards independence. This it cannot do without detaching itself from its origins: abandonment is therefore a necessary condition, not just a concomitant symptom
CW9.1 ¶ 287The conflict is not to be overcome by the conscious mind remaining caught between the opposites, and for this very reason it needs a symbol to point out the necessity of detaching itself from its origins
CW9.1 ¶ 287REDEMPTIVE EFFECT OF THE
SYMBOL OF THE CHILD
Because the symbol of the “child” fascinates and grips the conscious mind, its redemptive effect passes over into consciousness and brings about that separation from the conflict-situation which the conscious mind by itself was unable to achieve
CW9.1 ¶ 287CHILD SYMBOL ANTICIPATES
NASCENT STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The [child] symbol anticipates a nascent state of consciousness. So long as this is not actually in being, the “child” remains a mythological projection which requires religious repetition and renewal by ritual. The Christ Child, for instance, is a religious necessity only so long as the majority of men are incapable of giving psychological reality to the saying: “Except ye become as little children”
CW9.1 ¶ 287Since all such developments and transitions are extraordinarily difficult and dangerous, it is no wonder that figures of this kind persist for hundreds or even thousands of years. Everything that man should, and yet cannot, be or dobe it in a positive or negative senselives on as a mythological figure and anticipation alongside his consciousness, either as a religious projection orwhat is still more dangerousas unconscious contents which then project themselves spontaneously into incongruous objects, e.g., hygienic and other “salvationist” doctrines or practices. All these are so many rationalized substitutes for mythology, and their unnaturalness does more harm than good
CW9.1 ¶ 287The conflict-situation that offers no way out, the sort of situation that produces the “child” as the irrational third, is of course a formula appropriate only to a psychological, that is, modern stage of development. It is not strictly applicable to the psychic life of primitives, if only because primitive man's childlike range of consciousness still excludes a whole world of possible psychic experiences. Seen on the nature-level of the primitive, our modern moral conflict is still an objective calamity that threatens life itself
CW9.1 ¶ 288MANY CHILD-FIGURES
ARE CULTURE-HEROES
Hence not a few child-figures are culture-heroes and thus identified with things that promote culture, e.g., fire, metal, corn, maize, etc. As bringers of light, that is, enlargers of consciousness, they overcome darkness, which is to say that they overcome the earlier unconscious state
CW9.1 ¶ 288HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS LIKE
BEING ALL `ALONE IN THE WORLD'
Higher consciousness, or knowledge going beyond our present day consciousness, is equivalent to being all alone in the world. This loneliness expresses the conflict between the bearer or symbol of higher consciousness and his surroundings
CW9.1 ¶ 288STATE OF `ORIGINAL PSYCHIC DISTRESS'
The conquerors of darkness go far back into primeval times, and, together with many other legends, prove that there once existed a state of original psychic distress, namely unconsciousness. Hence in all probability the “irrational” fear which primitive man has of the dark even today
CW9.1 ¶ 288I found a form of religion among a tribe living on Mount Elgon that corresponded to pantheistic optimism. Their optimistic mood was, however, always in abeyance between six o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning, during which time it was replaced by fear, for in the night the dark being Ayik has his dominion the “Maker of Fear.” During the daytime there were no monster snakes anywhere in the vicinity, but at night they were lurking on every path. At night the whole of mythology was let loose
CW9.1 ¶ 288