Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought

CHAPTER V SYMBOLISM OF THE MOTHER AND OF REBIRTH (1) “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.” The Christians are the children of the City Above, a symbol of the mother, not sons of the earthly city-mother, who is to be cast out; for those born after the flesh are opposed to those born after the spirit, who are not born from the mother in the flesh, but from a symbol for the mother. One must again think of the Indians at this point, who say the first people proceeded from the sword-hilt and a shuttle. The religious thought is bound up with the compulsion to call the mother no longer mother, but City, Source, Sea, etc. This compulsion can be derived from the need to manifest an amount of libido bound up with the mother, but in such a way that the mother is represented by or concealed in a symbol. The symbolism of the city we find well-developed in the revelations of John, where two cities play a great part, one of which is insulted and cursed by him, the other greatly desired. We read in Revelation (xvii:1): (1) “Come hither: I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth on many waters. (2) “With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. (3) “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit on a scarlet colored beast, full of the names of blasphemy, and having seven heads and ten ho...