The Key
What opens, and what locks.
The Key: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The key opens what is closed: a door, a treasure, a secret. When Philemon first appeared to Jung, he held a bunch of four keys, one of them gripped as if he were about to open a lock.
The key is held by the one who may open: Peter’s keys bind and loose, Hecate’s open the underworld, Janus’s the year. In the tales a key is given with a prohibition, and the forbidden room is opened all the same; von Franz read Bluebeard’s bloodstained key as the knowledge that cannot be unknown once gained.
The four keys of Philemon, whom Jung met in his fantasies, he connected with the quaternity: the figure held the fourth as if about to open a lock, and Jung took it as the key to the fourth function, the one that opens the whole.
The Key: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The keys of Peter, of heaven and earth, the keys of Janus and of Hecate, Bluebeard’s key that will not come clean. The keys of the city, the key of David in the Advent antiphons, the golden key of the fairy tale that opens the small iron chest, the clavis of the alchemists, their books of keys.
From the Sources
Quoting the lines in Faust where the key 'will lead thee to the Mothers', Jung calls it the marvellous tool, a phallic symbol of the libido, put into Faust's hand by the devil.
“The key will scent the true place from all others! Follow it down!—'twill lead thee to the Mothers! Here the devil again puts into Faust's hand the marvellous tool, a phallic symbol of the libido”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, Chapter I, "Aspects of the Libido". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
Joyce observes that the power to confer or withhold forgiveness might well be viewed as the opening and shutting of the gates of heaven.
“Moreover, the power to confer or to withhold forgiveness might well be viewed as the opening and shutting of the gates of heaven.”
G. Joyce, Power of the Keys, "The Fathers". The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910 (New Advent transcription). The text, read in full
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
- Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), “Confrontation with the Unconscious”
- The Red Book: Liber Novus (2009)
- Marie-Louise von Franz, The Feminine in Fairy Tales (1972)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Things Held and Worn
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Key.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/key.
Nearby in the alphabet: Iron: The metal of Mars: strength, war, and will. The Island: A world apart, surrounded by the sea. The King and Queen: The royal pair whose marriage makes the whole. The Labyrinth: The winding way to a centre.