Hair
The mane
Strength and vitality, and what grows unbidden.
Hair: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The solar mythologists of Jung’s youth read Samson as a sun-hero, whose strength lay in his hair as the sun’s in its rays, and whose shearing is the sun’s setting; Symbols of Transformation draws throughout on such readings of the hero as the sun.
Hair grows of itself, like the thoughts and impulses that come unbidden; to cut it, in mourning, initiation, or the monk’s tonsure, is to offer up the natural self.
Hair: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Samson and Delilah; the Nazirite vow; the snakes of Medusa; Rapunzel; Mary Magdalene drying Christ’s feet with her hair.
From the Sources
Samson tells Delilah that no razor has come upon his head because he has been a Nazarite from his mother's womb, and that if he is shaven his strength will leave him.
“There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.”
The King James Version of the Bible, Judges 16:17. King James Version, Project Gutenberg eBook #10. The text, read in part
Frazer notes that in folk-tales a man's soul or strength is sometimes bound up with his hair, so that he dies or grows weak when it is cut, and that the natives of Amboyna believed their strength lay in their hair.
“…we have seen that in folk-tales a man's soul or strength is sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboyna used to think that their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were shorn.”
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion, Chapter LXVII, "The External Soul in Folk-Custom", section 1. Abridged edition (preface dated June 1922), Project Gutenberg eBook #3623. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Symbols of Transformation, CW 5
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among The Body
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Hair.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/hair.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Great Mother: The mother behind every mother, who gives life and takes it back. Green: The blessed greenness of living things. The Hand: Making, taking, blessing, and giving. The Hare: Quick, fertile, and of the moon.