THE GHOSTLY LOVER
To be 'in love' with a man is more than to 'love' him. The state of being in love carries with it a certain element of compulsion, and one who is in love, however enraptured he may be, is certainly not free. Love is proverbially blind. Indeed, a girl may be in love with a man whom, in the absence of the glamour resulting from her state of mind, she might find not even likeable or attractive. The glamour and attraction are effects produced by forces in her unconscious which have been stirred to activity through her contact with the man. She projects on to him some important element from her unconscious and then is attracted or repelled by that which she sees in him, quite unaware that it has originated deep within her own psyche. [...] When a woman is in love we can either say that she loves, that is, she is active, or we can put it the other way round and say that she is attracted, that is, she is passive. In other words her animus, projected to the outside world, draws her irresistibly. Regardless of whether the man loves her or not, the fascination makes it appear as though he were the active party—as though he loved her. From her subjective point of view it seems to her that she is attracted from without, while in reality the thing which attracts her is from within—in her unconscious.
The possibility of this occurrence is occasionally shown in a play or novel where the girl is portrayed as having a lover who is not of this world but belongs, instead, to the spirit or ghost world. This was the case in the old Jewish legend of the dybbuk, which was made the subject of a drama by Solomon Rappaport and performed both in Yiddish and English.
In this legend the lover who lures his beloved away from reality into union with himself is shown quite objectively as the ghost of a dead youth with whom the heroine was in love. In certain scenes in the play the girl is represented as possessed by the ghost; he enters into her and takes possession of her and she is shown to be temporarily insane, which is to say she is suffering from a psychological illness. In these scenes the ghost has no objective reality but lives none the less in a subjective reality in the girl's psyche. She is entirely absorbed in him and by him. She is lost to the real world about her, for she is living only in her own subjective world with her ghostly lover.
In Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude the same subject is dwelt upon. But here the ghost does not appear at all; his presence must be inferred from the effects he has upon his lover-victim; that is, he appears only as a subjective factor in the girl's psy¬chology. The heroine had been in love with a young soldier, an airman, and when he is killed in the war, she, as it were, loses her soul, and as a result, can give nothing of her real self to her life. She marries and is loved by many men, but her devotion always goes to her lost lover.
In both instances the lover is portrayed as the ghost or as the still-living influence of an actual man with whom the heroine had had a real relationship, however slender and frustrated it may have been. This influence which effects the woman as though it came from the action or desire of a man, when the truth is he is inactive or perhaps dead or may never have existed as an objective reality, must be a subjective effect within the woman's psyche—hence the term, Ghostly Lover. Manifestations of a ghostly lover may occur not only as the ghost of a real man but also in cases where an actual flesh-and-blood lover has never been in the picture. We may see instances of this in real life as well as in plays and novels. Barrie has shown the situation very clearly in his play Mary Rose, in which strange music lures Mary Rose away from her husband and child to the Island-that-wants-to-be-visited. This is a not unusual retreat which one frequently comes upon in the subjective life of real people. I have known many individuals who have built up an elaborate fantasy island or castle to which they retire when life is dull or difficult. Here they often spend endless time and energy constructing in fantasy a world more to their liking than the humdrum one to which they find it so hard to adapt. They `rebuild the world nearer to the Heart's desire'. A fantasy world where everything is as one wishes is enormously alluring and exerts a fascination calling one away from reality;: it becomes increasingly hard to resist, the more it is indulged in. This also is the work of the Ghostly Lover.
In talking about the Ghostly Lover we are not dealing with something which is remote or unusual or which occurs only in abnormal or pathological conditions. On the contrary the Ghostly Lover, in his psychological or subjective aspect, is a living reality to every woman. He holds his power and exerts his lure because he is a psychological entity, part of that con-glomerate of autonomous, or relatively autonomous, factors which make up her psyche. As he is a part of her so she is bound to him; she must find him and consciously assimilate him if she is not to suffer the pain and distress of disintegration. For he is her soul mate, her 'other half', the invisible companion who accompanies her throughout life. Jung has named this soul-figure of the woman animus. The animus is the equivalent of the man's anima, but the two figures differ markedly in their characteristics and in their manifestations.*
The term Ghostly Lover has been devised to denote the destructive aspect of the animus, but it must be borne in mind that this is only one aspect, for he does not always function destructively. As Ghostly Lover he always acts
as one who lures his victim away from reality by promises of bliss in another world. In the woman's psychology he is the counterpart of the siren in the man's. In the man's psychology, as in mythology, the siren by her music and charm lures the man to a watery grave. The Ghostly Lover, by the promise of untold bliss, entices the woman to seek his arms in the air.
The Ghostly Lover, however, is not merely an abstraction of the psychologist; he is manifested in actual, everyday life. In the
first two of the plays mentioned above, the Ghostly Lover is personified and acts his part, a. dominating one, as do the other persons in the play. He appears as a reality with power to act independently and autonomously. His psychological connec¬tion with the woman whose animus he represents is clearly shown by the curious and almost magical bond between them. In this way is expressed the autonomy of the animus, composed as he is of psychological contents of which the woman is unaware or over which her conscious ego exerts no control, for they belong to her unconscious. If she should become aware of these psychological contents, she would be in a position to dissolve the personification of the animus and thus to divest it of its power while she would be released from the 'magical' influence which the Ghostly Lover previously wielded.
The form of presentation in the plays is the result of the intuitive perception of the artist, who actually perceives the :various psychological tendencies of his characters in personified form, as though they were separate people. In his artistic product he shares with us, the audience, the fruits of his insight, but—and here is a strange fact—he may not know himself that the characters he depicts are psychological tendencies and complexes. He himself may take the play as being a simple narration of objective fact. In much the same way, in real life the Ghostly Lover is occasionally personified in the memory of a dead or absent lover. More often it happens that in con¬sciousness he is not personified; the woman victim herself does not know it is a ghostly lover who calls her away from reality to an unreal world, although in these cases her unconscious material, her dreams and daytime fantasies show clearly the real situation. In either case, however, when the Ghostly Lover calls and the woman follows she disappears, as it were, from reality, much as Mary Rose did.
To those about her she becomes vague, falls into a brown study, is perhaps cross or irritable; or she may wear a baffling or propitiatory smile. To herself it seems that she has become absorbed in an inner experience of great beauty and value which she cannot by any means share with another. At a moment when she is actually trying to share her inner experience with a friend such a mood may overtake her; and not realising how vague and meaningless her remarks have become it may seem to her that her friend is unsympathetic or wilfully misunderstands.[...]
The idea of the Ghostly or Spiritual Lover is not a new one. Religious mystics of all ages and creeds—the Sufis, the Shaktas, the Christian mystics—have all sought for union with a Divine Lover. Rabia, the Islamic woman mystic, knew God as the Divine Lover; the Beloved of her Soul, as did St. Bernard of Clairvaux, while many women saints of medieval Christianity tell us that their religious experience was of God as a Lover. Even today when a nun takes the veil, she is dedicated to this Divine Lover. She wears the bridal veil and is given a ring, as the Bride of Christ.
Religious experiences of this sort have been highly valued not only among Christians, but also with peoples of other religions, such as Mohammedans, Buddhists and Hindus. Individuals having them have been regarded as saints, posses¬sing a wisdom different in character from the wisdom to be gained by knowledge of the world and having achieved a development of character which makes them in very truth superior human beings.
We can hardly dismiss as hysterical nonsense all the evidence concerned with these religious experiences, nor can we say that it is entirely in the nature of unreal fantasy, as in the case of Mary Rose. How much of it is of that nature, it is hard to say. Undoubtedly there are many who 'have professed religion' as a means of escaping from the burdens and difficulties of life in the world. The inner experience of such people would, in all prob-ability, be of a lover who lured them away from the world of reality into a dream world.
In other words, if anyone chooses a life of seclusion and introversion as an escape from the difficul¬ties of life, he must expect to get lost in that inner world where as many difficulties and dangers await the adventurer as beset the explorer of the outer world. Indeed, the outer world is safe and protected compared with the inner world of the un-conscious. But the pseudo-adventurers do not represent all who have explored the inner world.
Since the fifteenth century adventurous souls have exercised their courage and audacity in exploring the unknown parts of the earth. Today the exploration of the globe has been practi¬cally completed by the conquest of Everest and all the more remote areas, notably the Antarctic. In two remaining spheres, however, man is setting himself a further task of exploration. In the realm of the air fearless and undaunted young men are setting out on ever more daring enterprises, even into inter¬planetary space. In the sphere of the inner life, with less adver¬tisement and general talk, other men and women, no less courageous, are setting out on the adventure of exploring the hidden world that lies behind consciousness.
But in this inner world, as in the outer, the adventurer who travels without knowledge or experience or true seriousness of purpose goes forward only to his own undoing. For nature knows no pity. If one goes to the polar regions without due preparation, merely to escape from some difficulty in life, he will inevitably meet with a most unpleasant awakening. In just the same way, if one seeks the inner world in order to escape from life's tasks he will without doubt be overwhelmed and will perish.
A similar fate will over take anyone who chooses a religious life of contemplation as a means of escape from life's tasks. It is the purpose that counts. For instance, to take up the religious life of contemplation as a means of escape from life's burdens is not to experience God, but rather to fall into the unconscious and gradually be swallowed up. The visions or fantasies that come to such a man will be of a very different character from those of the true mystic and will not stand the test of analysis. [...]
So we see that inner fantasies and visions, daydreams and religious experiences fall into two groups which, as Milarepa says, 'appear to be alike' and yet are so different in their results that while one leads to the greatest unreality and, indeed, is to be seen at the point of its fullest development in mental hospitals, the other is a true and valid experience of an inner reality which is as 'real' and as powerful as any external reality.
This statement will meet with scepticism, I am sure, or even frank ridicule from some of my readers. To many the pheno¬mena of the outer world with their direct appeal to the senses constitute the only reality. Unless a thing can be, seen and felt and handled, it is for them ephemeral and unreal. Yet even such concrete-minded and practical people are compelled to recognise the existence of many unseen and impalpable forces which manifest themselves in the material world. Electricity cannot be seen; radio arid television waves are invisible. Yet their reality has been demonstrated beyond any question by their effects in the world. These are physical forces, but there are also psychological forces which by their manifestations in the concrete world convince us in exactly the same way of their reality.[...]
To the concrete-minded man all inner experience is of the nature of fantasies, vapours, wish fulfilments, or is a sort of illness of which a man can be cured by bringing his interest into the 'reality' of the external world.
On the other hand, the man whose chief orientation is to the inner world of thought and of the spirit tends to depreciate the external world and to over-appreciate the inner experiences. He also needs Milarepa's warning. Just as the concrete-minded man confuses the true with the false and says that all inner experiences are 'silly and wasteful', so the man with inner vision tends to confuse the true with the false and to say that all his fantasies are 'beautiful and significant'. Each attitude is biased and leads to a one-sided and unstable position; How can we follow Milarepa's advice to `beware and confuse them not' ?
The first step in making such a discrimination is to examine the data more closely and determine what the actual experience of the Ghostly, or Divine, Lover is. The experience of the Ghostly Lover is an inner or subjective one. Whether we conceive of the lover as being the woman's animus, her masculine soul, or whether we conceive of the Divine Lover as God, in either case he may be perceived by her as a being outside her conscious personality, and yet he is one with whom she can converse only subjectively, that is to say, within herself. Even where, as in the case quoted above, there is a hallucination of an external presence or, as in the cases which we shall shortly consider, where an actual man carries the values of the Ghostly Lover, it is still possible in every case to demonstrate the subjective or psychological character of the energy which the Ghostly Lover wields.
The inner experience may be perceived in various ways. It may be experienced as a mood, either with or without conscious content and fantasy pictures; or as a projection in the outer world, when some actual person or circumstance is endowed with the meaning and value of the inner experience; or as a dream or vision, which may form the basis for an artistic or some other creative product. The mood, the projection, of the vision represents the part of the experience which is perceived in consciousness, while beyond this there may—almost certainly will—also be phenomena, dreams or fantasies, appearing from the unconscious, which will show the situation viewed, as it were, from the other side. For instance, I have known more than one case where a woman, retreating from life into her subjective moods, has dreamed of an airman flying overhead. In the typical dream he comes close to the ground and the dreamer catches hold of a part of the airplane and is carried up and away like the tail of a kite. I say this is a typical dream for I have met with it repeatedly in patients who are being caught away from life into the unconscious.
Fantasies with an emotional tone which bring their own satisfaction are a normal part of psychological life.
Only when the preoccupation with this fantasy material withdraws attention from the world of reality does it become a menace. In particular, fantasies and visions of an imaginary lover play a necessary part in the psychological changes of puberty.
But this absorption with the dream of love should be a passing phase, giving place to the interests and activities of real friendships. Frequently, however, girls show a tendency to cling to such fantasies. Where outer contacts are not easily made or where an incipient attachment is checked by external difficulties, we often find the young girl retreating into the world of dreams where the suitor is more to her liking and plays his role more as she would have it played. Here we have the birth of the Ghostly Lover. Such a fantasy inevitably stands between the girl and all the boys and men whom she meets. It is as though her acquaintances have an unseen rival whom they must surpass before they can hope to win her attention. As time goes on the developing woman may forget her fantasy; she occupies herself with her life tasks and thinks no more about her girlhood dreams. But that does not mean that her problem is solved. The Ghostly Lover has fallen into the unconscious. He is not conquered or dispossessed. He is still the Beau Ideal, the Prince Charming, before whose attractions all other men seem insigni¬ficant. He is invisible, but his presence can be inferred from the reactions of the woman who possesses him, or rather, who is possessed by him. She will have what appears to the onlooker to be a perfectly arbitrary standard by which she judges every man she meets. She will say, 'Oh yes, he's a nice enough fellow, but I like tall men' or fair men or dark men or thin men or what not. Or, making her judgment from the head, she will say, 'He is too intellectual', or 'He hasn't any ideas'.
This 'opinionating' is not to be confused with a real judgment based on external facts. It is true that in certain cases a man may be so occupied with his intellectual life that he has nothing to put into a relationship with a woman. But the falsity in the case I am considering rests on the a priori nature of the judgment that allows nothing to the situation. It is not that the woman has tried to find values in the relationship and failed, but that by her a priori judgment she blots out the man in one stroke. If a woman makes a critical atmosphere in the beginning, the man will certainly hesitate to leave his own masculine sphere where he feels himself secure. In the realm of feeling, which is properly the woman's world, a man tends to feel hesitant, rather at a disadvantage, and if the woman's attitude is critical he is forced over to the intellectual side and is prevented from functioning on any but the most impersonal basis.
This unseen hero may show himself only through the woman's depreciation of real men. But this depreciation is proof of his presence in her unconscious as a criterion. He holds for the woman such overwhelming values that all other men pale in comparison.
The trouble is that the values of the Ghostly Lover in such a form are unrealisable, for he remains only an `impossible possibility'. The woman cannot bring these values into life through a living relation to the man, for he only exists in her unconscious, nor, while he thus keeps her from life, can she obtain his values in any other way.[...]
In this situation the possibility which was held as
a rigid demand on life was the work of the Ghostly Lover. But the example serves also as an introduction to the next form in which the hero in the unconscious may show himself. Unconscious contents have a great tendency to be projected to the outer world,
where they fasten on to any convenient carrier which presents a suitable hook. When this occurs the mantle of Prince Charming falls upon some man in the outer world and the woman falls violently under the spell of this current incarnation of the prince. The nature of the spell varies. She may project intellectual values and find a Great Teacher; she may project erotic values and find her Beau Ideal.[...]
Jung, in his commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower,* speaks of the anima as the earth spirit, while the animus is the air spirit. In accordance with this we find that men are attracted by the siren, the woman who is half fish living in the depths of the water, or by the earth spirit, who lives deep within the earth. For instance, Ulysses is lured by the sirens, and Tannhauser by Venus, who is represented in the legend as living in the Venusberg, a mountain in the depths of the earth. On the other hand, women are caught up into the air by the Ghostly Lover. The Flying Dutchman is such a Ghostly Lover to Senta. In Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude, it is an airman who becomes Nina's Ghostly Lover. In Lohengrin a rather different aspect of the animus is shown. For Lohengrin is the spiritual, or sky, animus who comes on the swan to aid Elsa in her extremity.
He does not carry her away with him, but he disappears when she doubts him, showing that it is the woman's attitude which has power to convert the Ghostly Lover into spiritual animus. Then, if her attitude becomes tinged with power motives, he degenerates again into the Ghostly Lover from which he evolved. To the woman her animus is up in the air; if she goes with him, it is to meet him in realms above the earth, and we feel of her that she is 'all up in the air'. Hence it is that a man who conquers the air, a flying man, is a particularly appropriate holder of this kind of animus transference.[...]
The general, or collective, character of the animus transference in these cases is shown by the large number of women who are attracted to the same man. For the individual woman partakes of the ancestral experience through the animus who is racial rather than personal in his character, which accounts for the extraordinary similarity in the description given of him by different people.
Thus it happens that when the one man fulfils the ideal of many women his appeal obviously rests not on his individual qualities but on those which are generally atttactive to many women; that is to say, he carries those values of the animus which are not personal to any one of his admirers but are common to them all. This does not mean that his admirers do not feel themselves to be personally involved; they do. [...]
[...] A woman falls in love; she is enthusiastic over the man; her emotions are strongly aroused; there is no doubt that mighty forces are brought into play. But the odd thing is that nothing happens; the situation always falls flat. The man may be intrigued for a little while; he is certainly flattered, and he may even take advantage of the woman's involvement with him.
But sooner or later disillusion creeps in; the spell is broken, the glamour gone; the beloved becomes only ordinary man. A few weeks, or perhaps only a few days, elapse, and the process begins all over again. Another man looms on the woman's horizon and becomes the hero of the hour. Again the woman is aglow with the re-emergence of her animus values. It may be that this episode will be more satisfactory, that more of reality will be brought into it and that the affair will last a little longer, but it is foredoomed to failure. Sooner or later it will be replaced by another similar projection.
Such a woman seems to be bound to the wheel which drags her through an endless series of projections, bound on it by one of the greatest laws of her being—the necessity to seek her own soul, her animus. But it is her fate to see him only as a projection upon one man after another. She loves him in one man, but she soon discovers she has been deceived, for the man and her animus are not the same thing. She loves him in another, lives through a brief period of illusion and awakens again. This time she metaphorically rubs her eyes and looks around, only to see her animus masquerading in the person of another man. Disillusion gives place to illusion and the whole experience is repeated.
She realises that this sort of things leads nowhere, that she is following a chimera—the Ghostly Lover who lures his victim away from life and reality. And the question arises: How can this hopeless quest be checked?
She may understand perfectly what is happening to her, yet be powerless to help herself. Her emotions are too deep and too powerful to be amenable to the commands of her conscious will.
A third way in which the Ghostly Lover may show himself is in the form of visions or values which are seen or sensed deep in the unconscious, the inner world. Many people are lured by such fantasies. For instance the would-be artist who sees mar¬vellous pictures which she never paints, or the author whose poem or novel remains unwritten, or the theosophist who lives in a world which can never be realised in practical life—all are lured away from reality by the Ghostly Lover. If the artist tries to paint her picture, the meagreness of the reality-product discourages her. She feels it is better that one person, namely herself, should keep the beauty of the vision unspoiled by an inadequate expression of it.
She catches Leviathan with an hook, it is true, but instead of pulling out Leviathan she herself is pulled in and lost to the reality world. Surely it is better to catch a little and land it than to hook a great fish and be pulled under the water.
At times the only wisdom may be for her to let go of these things and turn her attention to establishing a hold on reality. At others, by a supreme effort, the hidden value can be caught and brought to birth in the world; then the Ghostly Lover will change his character and become the spiritual animus. He is vanquished as Ghostly Lover; he no longer acts as dybbuk, but becomes the woman's strength and guide; that is to say, he performs his right function of relating to the unconscious.
The same mechanism which takes the would-be artist away from real life may function in other women who make no pretensions to artistic ability.
Whenever it seems easier to enjoy an idea or an interpretation alone, rather than to present it to the world, one should suspect that it is the work of the Ghostly Lover.
Reality is the great test of value; if a thing works it is real and not a dream. This is the test that the world applies to one who claims to be an inventor. If he can make a model which will work, he is no idle dreamer. So, too, visions and thoughts can prove themselves of value through their: application in the world, even though they may relate to conduct and relationship rather than to the material world. A vision which can bridge the gap between two human beingss is no more an idle dream than was the vision through which the George Washington Bridge was conceived.
The constellation of the animus, whether as Prince Charming through a projection on to a living man or in the vision of inner values, is always important. For at such times potential values, which are ordinarily hidden away beyond reach in the depths of the unconscious, are stirred from their slumber and become available for consciousness. Our reach usually exceeds our grasp. Nevertheless, at the very moment when the animus values are glimpsed, energy is always released. This energy generally shows itself as emotion, but all too often the moving of the waters passes before one can stretch out a hand and make the value his own.
Even when a woman is sufficiently aware to seize upon the treasure, it may be only to find it more firmly anchored in the primordial depths than she herself is in reality. In consequence she will be in danger of being engulfed, if she does not take counsel of wisdom and relinquish for the moment her hold on that most desirable treasure. But the power and attraction of the animus are such that she is compelled, even against her will, to return to it again and again, just as a woman who, having fallen in love with a man who has represented animus to her and having resolved never to repeat the experience, is none the less irresistibly drawn into another affair which is a duplication of the first. Her burnt fingers do not save her any more than singed wings save the moth from the flame.[...]
When the animus appears only as a mood, based on the memory of a dead or lost lover or on a conscious or unconscious fantasy of 'Prince Charming,' obviously nothing external can be done directly in relation to the man concerned, for he lives only in the woman's inner world. But something can be done to counteract the effects in the outer world, which result from the woman's possession by the Ghostly Lover. For instance, she may set herself the task of becoming aware of the functioning of the critical attitude by which she depreciates all men whom she meets. She can attempt to undercut the animus by criticising her own critical attitude. When she makes a snap judgment about a man or a situation or is swayed by an unfounded opinion she must ask herself why she thinks this. To the onlooker this task appears easy. But if a woman who is possessed by the animus tries to reach consciousness in this way she will discover how difficult it is. For these opinions are in their nature perceived as a priori truths; they are not reached by a process of logic or argument. If they were, it would be relatively easy to detect the false step leading to the untenable position.
How then can such a woman become conscious of what she is doing? To only a very small extent can she become aware by exercising a conscious critique; only in rare instances can she be made aware by the protest of her friends. If she goes to an analyst she may become aware to a certain extent, from a simple discussion of the incidents of her daily life. But for a real under-standing of the situation, an analysis of the unconscious aspect of the incidents is necessary. There the work of the animus will be clearly shown, and he will be unmasked in his true aspect. Such evidence, coming as it does from the patient's own material, is convincing in a way that no exposition and no criticism from another can ever be, for the conviction of truth born of one's own conscious material, to be appreciated, must be experienced.
When the source of her critical attitude is recognised in this way and the woman has released herself from the spell put upon, her by the Ghostly Lover, she will be able to meet whatever human contacts life brings her in a more humble and accepting spirit than before. Such a change in attitude has an effect, that is almost magical. Over and over again, women have told me that no sooner have they changed in their attitude than everyone changes towards them. People who formerly were resistant become receptive; those who were hostile or indifferent become sympathetic. It is as though some 'magic' is working, and working, too, beyond the sphere of immediate contact. [...]
Many instances could be cited showing that when a woman releases herself from the hold of the Ghostly Lover she finds emotional value and'new life in contacts which were previously sterile. This is one way in which the problem of the Ghostly Lover may be resolved.
Something of the same result may be achieved in cases where the animus is projected on to a living man. Here again the chief difficulty lies in unawareness of the real situation. When a woman makes a projection of her animus she does not know what she is doing. On the contrary, to the woman the fact is that she meets a man who to her is this marvellous person. She perceives him to be such, and only by a careful analysis of the situation in both its conscious and its unconscious aspects can the true nature of the case be recognised while the projection lasts. This is a very important point, for often the true nature of a situation can be readily recognised after it is past, since then the outcome gives evidence of its true nature—it is seen historically. Its hidden tendencies manifested through the life process are still nascent in the earlier stages; they are but germs hidden in the womb which shall bring forth the future, a future already inherent in the situation. This womb which holds the seed of the future is the unconscious. If the unconscious is analysed, the germs latent in any situation will be brought to light. Thus by analysing the unconscious content we can view the present, as it were, historically; we can get a fourth dimensional point of view. It enables us to see things 'as they are' and at the same time to see things 'as they will be'. We outwit time, for we see the future in embryo.
This 'foresight' surely is the significance of the third of the Three Fates, the Norn who spins the future from the past and the present.
To see life in this way, not only 'as it is' but 'as it will be', carries with it a new responsibility for our actions which to many may seem too costly to acquire and too heavy to bear. Wotan, we remember, paid for this privilege with the sight of one eye.
We humans also pay heavily, for we can no longer be wafted along under the spell of an animus projection. It is delight and intoxication to be in love with a man who carries the animus values. He is our Beau Ideal, our 'soul mate' ! To analyse and to understand this as a psychological illusion rather than as a piece of heaven on earth requires courage and the willingness to pay a great price.
The price we must pay is to assume consciously the responsibility for our actions. No longer can we blame fate for the man, nor can we consider ourselves injured innocents and sink back into illusion again, where
`Each owns a paradise of glass .. .
Like fauns embossed in our domain
We look abroad and our calm eyes
Mark how the goatish Gods of pain
Revel; and if by grim surprise
They break into our paradise
Patient we build its beauty up again.'*
[...]
When a woman finds herself in love with a man on to whom she has projected the Ghostly Lover, she can release herself from the dominance of her animus if she can work through the trans-ference element in her love
and make a real relationship with the man. This outcome is naturally more feasible if the involve-ment is mutual. There is obviously no possibility of relationship where the hero is adored by thousands of women, as in the case of Rudolph Valentino, but in an ordinary social situation when a man and woman are attracted to each other, on account of a mutual anima-animus projection, it is possible to redeem the values which have been projected,
by building up a relationship based on reality, in place of the illusion of the transferred values.
The problem of the Ghostly Lover is most frequently resolved in this way. When a man and woman marry there is almost invariably some element of an animus-anima projection in their love. After the first glamour has worn off, each begins to realise that his partner does not see him as he is, but that in some strange way he is distorted in the other's eyes, for in certain ways each is glorified and in others depreciated. But the whole mechanism is subtle and may not come clearly into conscious focus. There is, moreover, a great tendency to let things slide. and not to make an issue of slight misunderstandings. After a few protests and a more or less prolonged conflict, the young couple generally settle down to the business of life and allow these misconceptions to go on practically unchallenged. In such a case the projections of anima and animus persists and no real relatedness can develop.
One might think this was an ideal solution of the situation, were it not that the garment of the projected animus or anima, so docilely accepted in the early days of marriage, becomes increasingly hard to throw off, and the man and woman find themselves progressively forced to wear the mask which was not repudiated at first. Such a situation formed the theme of Eugene O'Neill's play The Great God Brown. The mask so slightly assumed by Dion in order that he might fulfil his fiancee's ideal gradually hardens on him, crushing out his spontaneity and initiative. The second danger point now arises. The partner who has been submerged by the weight of the animus or the anima projection rebels and refuses to carry it any longer but forcibly reveals himself for what he is. If the whole situation does not disintegrate from the effects of the explosion, another opportunity is offered for building up something of reality-relatedness. But, once again, this outcome is, in the sense used above, historical; only the sequence of events brings the opportunity, and that generally not for many years. The obligation, in such a case, to work on the problem of relationships is the work of fate; it is not the free choice of the individuals concerned. If, however, instead of merely living along, carried by the energy and desire created by the projected animus or anima values, this man and woman had sought out the intimations from the unconscious, it would have been possible to discover where the animus or anima projections obscured the situation. By this means they could have estab¬lished at each point a small measure of relatedness to each other in their own true persons. As a result there would have been built up gradually through the years a reality in place of the illusion based on projection. Dealing with the problems of life in this way has a double value for not only is reality sub¬stituted for illusion, but the anima or animus values, dissolved from their projection in the outer world, are also realised in the character and personality of the man or woman. The maturity
which may sometimes be seen in a couple who have lived together for a lifetime, learning to know and accept each other, comes in no small measure from this assimilation of the anima and animus.[...]
And here we come to what is perhaps the most important part of the whole subject, namely the assimilation of the values of the Ghostly Lover. At first when these values are unconscious they are completely unavailable for development. Then they are projected, and the individual becomes aware of them, but they are outside the personality. The problem is : How can they be brought back within the psyche in such a form that their energy may be available for conscious life-development?
If a woman whose animus values are constellated in a projection on to a man is analysed, a moment comes when the projection is broken. The psychological energy, or libido, formerly occupied with the projection is released and sinks down into the unconscious where it begins to activate the primordial images that lie hidden there. At this moment it sometimes happens that she begins to produce spontaneous fantasies and visions, which represent the transformations which the libido is undergoing in the unconscious. If the woman takes these fantasies seriously as representing a certain kind of reality, she can begin to take a part in the fantasy, that is, she can 'get into' the fantasy and participate in its development, instead of merely being obsessed by the mood of unhappiness into which such a disappointment is only too apt to throw her. Jung has described this method in his Two Essays. He says:
Now this is the direct opposite of succumbing to a mood, which is so typical of neurosis. It is no weakness, no spineless surrender, but a hard achievement, the essence of which consists in keeping your objectivity despite the temptations of the mood, and in making the mood your object, instead of allowing it to become in you the dominating subject. So the patient must try to get his mood to speak to him; his mood must tell him all about itself and show him through what kind of fantastic analogies it is expressing itself.*
{Reminds me of a "spiritual release session", where you have to make a differential diagnosis, understand where it is coming from and assist in its release}
Through allowing the mood to unfold itself in this fashion a picture of the situation in the unconscious is revealed in which the subject can come to participate. If this participation can be achieved, a gradual development of the fantasy material takes place in such a way that the values, previously caught in the projection, are assimilated and serve to create a new centre for the personality which, as Jung says, 'ensures for the personality a new and more solid foundation[...]
The eagle which rises from the flame is, like the phoenix, the promise of the renewal of life. It is analogous to the dove, the Holy Spirit, which descended upon the disciples in tongues of flame. In the Christian story the Holy Spirit, which was to bring God to dwell within the hearts of the believers, descended only after Christ, the incarnation of God as Hero, had departed from the world. Psychologically it is also true that the spiritual animus comes to dwell within the psyche only after the projection of the animus, the incarnation of the Ghostly Lover, has been overcome. Thus it is that the Ghostly Lover disappears and in his stead is born a new spiritual power transforming the life of the individual. Through this redeemed animus the woman gains a relation to the masculine principle within herself. This masculine principle is the Logos, or wisdom. When she is identified with the animus she is possessed by opinions and rationalisations and so-called principles which do not represent true wisdom at all. These are the work of the Ghostly Lover. True wisdom can be known only through the spiritual, or redeemed animus, who is a mediator between con-scious and unconscious. He brings the values of the creative sources of the unconscious within reach of that human,- being who has had the courage and the strength to overcome the Ghostly Lover.
