Member-only story
States of Possession?
As the anima does with men, the animus also creates states of possession in women. In myths and fairy tales this condition is often represented by the devil or an “old man of the mountain,” that is, a troll or ogre, holding the heroine prisoner and forcing her to kill all men who approach her or to deliver them into the hands of the demon; or else the father shuts up the heroine in a tower or a grave or sets her on a glass mountain, so that no one can get near her….
— Marie-Louise von Franz
*
”Now, here is the symbol of the inner Christ in the depths of the soul. He is not out there in the sky, as Christian teaching wants to have it, or in some metaphysical spiritual realm. He is in the depths of the earth, and the earth is an image of matter, of our body, of our physical existence. The cave has always been a sacred place in former ages. Long after man no longer lived in caves, there remained sanctuaries. They were, so to speak, the womb of the earth goddess, or the goddess of nature. So the cave symbolizes the depth of the inner nature.
Now, this dream says that Christ is not some model figure you have to follow as you have been taught….You find him in the womb of Mother Earth”.
— Marie-Louise von Franz
*
