Animus and Anima Book

Essays by Emma Jung on the animus and on the anima. I took an interest in this book because I wanted to understand, what does it mean if a woman projects her animus onto me and what does it mean if I project the anima onto her, and how do these mysterious internal images make an external affect? I also wanted more insight into the relationship of a woman to her animus and a man to his anima, and that's what this book is all about.

I like to post quotes from the books I've read. I'll include several here. Some will be on how the animus involves itself in a woman's life in either a positive, creative manner or in a destructive "possession." Jungian books so often mention 'animus possession' of a woman. With the anima, however, rather than using the term 'possession,' writers say that she puts a man "under a spell" of obsession or fascination. Emma Jung refers to several myths and fairy tales as examples of the nixie, water-woman or fairy who carries the man away into the unconscious, underwater or into a magical fairyland.

Quotes from the essay on the Animus:

"If the possibility of spiritual functioning is not taken up by the conscious mind, the psychic energy intended for it falls into the unconscious, and there activates the archetype of the animus. Possessed of the energy that has flowed back into the unconscious, the animus figure becomes autonomous, so powerful, indeed, that it can overwhelm the conscious ego, and thus finally dominate the whole personality." Pg. 6

"Such a total transference of the animus image as that described above creates, together with an apparent satisfaction and completeness, a kind of compulsive tie to the man in question and a dependence on him that often increases to the point of becoming unbearable. This state of being fascinated by another and wholly under his influence is well known under the term 'transference,' which is nothing else than projection. However, projection means not only the transference of an image to another person, but also of the activities that go with it, so that a man to whom the animus image has been transferred is expected to take over all the functions that have remained undeveloped in the woman in question, whether the thinking function, or the power to act, or responsibility toward the outside world. In turn, the woman upon whom a man has projected his anima must feel for him, or make relationships for him, and this symbiotic relationship is, in my opinion, the real cause for the compulsive dependence that exists in these cases." Pg. 10

"What is really necessary is that feminine intellectuality, logos in the woman, should be so fitted into the nature and life of the woman that a harmonious cooperation between the feminine and masculine factors ensues and no part is condemned to a shadowy existence." Pg. 13

"One of the most important ways that the animus expresses itself, then, is in making judgements, and as it happens with judgements, so it is with thoughts in general. From within, they crowd upon the woman in already complete, irrefutable forms. Or, if they come from without, she adopts them because they seem to her somehow convincing or attractive. But usually she feels no urge to think through and thus really understand the ideas which she adopts and, perhaps, even propagates further. Her undeveloped power of discrimination results in her meeting valuable and worthless ideas with the same enthusiasm or with the same respect, because anything suggestive of mind impresses her enormously and exerts an uncanny fascination upon her. This accounts for the success of so many swindlers who often achieve incomprehensible effects with a sort of pseudo-spirituality. On the other hand, her lack of discrimination has a good side; it makes the woman unprejudiced and therefore she frequently discovers and appraises spiritual values more quickly than a man, whose developed critical power tends to make him so distrustful and prejudiced that it often takes him considerable time to see a value which less prejudiced persons have long since recognized." Pg. 15

"One of the animus activities most difficult to see through lies in this field, namely, the building up of a wish-image of ourself. The animus is expert at sketching in and making plausible a picture that represents us as we would like to be seen, for example, as the 'ideal lover,' the 'appealing, helpless child,' the 'selfless handmaiden,' the 'extraordinarily original person,' the 'one who is really born to something better,' and so on. This activity naturally lends the animus power over us until we voluntarily, or perforce, make up our minds to sacrifice the highly colored picture and see ourselves as we really are." Pg. 18

"The transmission of the unconscious contents in the sense of making them visible is the special role of the anima. It helps the man to perceive these otherwise obscure things. A necessary condition for this is a sort of dimming of consciousness; that is, the establishment of a more feminine consciousness, less sharp and clear than man's, but one which is thus able to perceive in a wider field things that are still shadowy. Woman's gift as seer, her intuitive faculty, has always been recognized. Not having her vision brought to a focus gives her an awareness of what is obscure and the power to see what is hidden from a keener eye. This vision, this perception of what is otherwise invisible, is made possible for the man by the anima." Pp. 25-26

Quotes from the essay on the Anima:

"Being carried away to fairyland is, psychologically, a very important motif. In the Celtic tradition this realm does not have the terrible and fearful character that it possesses elsewhere. … That the anima rules this realm and leads the way to it is well known. The danger of getting lost there, that is, in the unconscious, seems to have been felt even in the early times, for countless stories describe the knight caught in the bonds of love, who forgets his knightly duties and in a self-sufficient twosome with his lady becomes estranged from the world and from reality.
"An extreme example of this kind is the case of the enchanter Merlin, whose beloved, the fairy Vivian, used the magic arts which she learned by eavesdropping upon him, to tie him in invisible bonds and imprison him in a hawthorn bush from which he was never able to escape.
"This story is particularly instructive because the figure of Merlin so very fittingly embodied the consciousness and the thinking faculty which were lacking in the masculine world around him. He was a Luciferian, Mephisto-like being, and as such represented the intellect in statu nascendi, that is, in still primitive form. To this he owed his magic power; but because his feminine side had been neglected, it drew him back in the form of eros, and bound in the toils of nature this man who had identified himself with the logos principle." Pp. 71-72

Commenting on a Welsh tale of a Nixie:
"The water woman brings her husband prosperity and transmits to her sons a knowledge of healing herbs which is obviously due to her connection with nature.
"Rhys cites countless similar legends connected with definite persons who trace their descent to water women and are proud of it. The taboos are not always the same; sometimes the man may not touch his wife with iron, or he may not speak unfriendly words more than three times, and so on. But always the violation of the condition results from heedlessness, or a fateful accident; it is never intentional.
"Irrational as these conditions may be in themselves, the effect that follows from infringing them is as consistent and invariable as a natural law. For half-human beings like these are part of nature and do not possess the freedom of choice allowed to man, which enables him sometimes to behave in a way that does not correspond to nature's laws, as, for example, when his behavior is determined by insights and feelings which raise it above the purely natural." Pg. 62

"The nixie who lives in the water, that is, in the unconscious, represents the feminine in a semi-human, almost unconscious state. In so far as she is married to a man, one may assume that she represents his unconscious, natural anima, together with his undifferentiated feeling, since her transgressions occur in this realm. At the same time it must be noted that she is unadapted not to matters of individual but of collective feeling. It is a fact that one's unconscious personality components (the anima, animus, and shadow), or one's inferior function are always those which the world finds offensive, and which are therefore repressed again and again. The nixies disappearance into her element describes what happens when an unconscious content comes to the surface but is still so little coordinated with the ego consciousness as to sink back at the slightest provocation." Pg. 63

"In this context, too, belongs the revenge which elfin beings take when they are despised or insulted, for they are extremely touchy and likely to persevere in resentments unmodified by any human understanding. The same may be said of the anima, the animus and the undifferentiated functions; indeed, the exaggerated touchiness frequently to be met with in otherwise robust men is a sign of anima involvement. Likewise to be discerned in the anima are the incalculability, mischievousness and frequent malice of these elemental spirits, which constitute the reverse side of their bewitching charm. These beings are simply irrational, good and bad, helpful and harmful, healing and destructive, like nature herself of which they are a part.
"And the anima, as the unconscious, feminine aspect of man, is not alone in showing these qualities; the same can be seen in many women. For woman, in general, because of her biological task, has remained a more elemental being than man, and often manifests this kind of behavior more or less plainly. It is easy for a man to project the anima image to the more elemental women: they correspond so exactly to his own unconscious femininity." Pp. 63-64

"In recent literature the figure of Antinea in Benoit's novel, L'Atlantide, most impressively reveals both the serpent and the beast-of-prey aspects of the elemental anima. Fascinating all the men who come her way with the beauty of Venus, the wisdom of the serpent, and the cruelty of the carnivore, she works irresistible magic upon them and without exception they perish. Then their mummified corpses are used to ornament the mausoleum erected especially for the purpose. Antinea claims to have risen from the Lost Atlantis and to be descended from Neptune; hence, like Morgan le Fée and Aphrodite, she is sea-born. She is a purely destructive anima figure; those whom she enchants lose all of their masculine strength and virtue and finally die. As may be seen from these examples, succumbing to the power of the anima always has the same fatal effect and is in a way comparable to the emasculation of the priests of Cybele." Pg. 78

"In modern dreams and active imagination, the anima also appears frequently in the company of a father figure. This can be taken as an intimation that behind the feminine nature-element there lies a masculine-spiritual factor, to which may be ascribed the knowledge of hidden things possessed by these elemental feminine creatures. Jung calls this factor 'the Old Wise Man,' or the 'archetype of meaning,' while he designates the anima as the 'archetype of life.'" Pg. 80

"Both the nature creature and the anima represent the eros principle, the former transmitting hidden knowledge, just as the latter transmits information about the contents of the unconscious. Both exert a fascinating effect and often possess a power overwhelming enough to produce ruinous results, especially when certain condition affecting the relationship broken off or made impossible. Fro this it may be seen that such a tie is a delicate matter, as is also the relation to the anima. Indeed, we know from experience that the anima makes certain demands upon a man. She is a psychic factor that insists on being considered, not neglected as is the general tendency, since a man naturally likes to identify himself with his masculinity.
"However, it is not a question of either surrendering his masculinity completely to the service of the Lady Anima or losing her entirely, but only of granting a certain space to the feminine, which is also a part of his being. This he does by recognizing and realizing the eros, the principle of relationship, which means that he not only becomes aware of his feeling, but also makes use of it, because to create, and especially to preserve, a relationship, a value judgment (which is what feeling is) cannot be dispensed with. A man by nature tends to relate to objects, to his work, or to some other field of interest; but what matters to a woman is the personal relation, and this is true also of the anima. Her tendency is to entangle a man in such relationships, but she can also serve him well in giving them shape - that is, she can do so after the feminine element has been incorporated into consciousness. As long as this element works autonomously, it disturbs relations or makes them impossible." Pp. 80-81