The Phallus
Generative power, which is more than sexual.
The Phallus: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The earliest dream Jung remembered, from about the age of three, was of an underground chamber in a meadow where a great phallus stood on a golden throne, and his mother’s voice called it “the man-eater.” He came to read the phallus as the creative, generative power of nature and the unconscious, and it was in part over this wider reading of libido, as more than sexual, that he parted from Freud.
The Phallus: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The herms of Hermes, the lingam of Shiva, the fertility figures of the fields, the solar phallus of the Burghölzli patient.
From the Sources
Jung writes that antiquity saw in the symbol of the phallus the quintessence of life and fruitfulness, the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker of miracles, revered everywhere.
“…the tendency in antiquity, which was to see in the symbol of the phallus the quintessence of life and fruitfulness. The phallus is the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker of miracles, and as such it received reverence everywhere.”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part I, Chapter IV, "The Song of the Moth". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
Jung describes the phallus as the being that moves without limbs, sees without eyes and knows the future, the symbolic representative of the universal creative power.
“The phallus is the being, which moves without limbs, which sees without eyes, which knows the future; and as symbolic representative of the universal creative power existent everywhere immortality is vindicated in it.”
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
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), “First Years”
- 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
“The Phallus.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/phallus.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Pelican: The mother who feeds her young with her own blood. The Persona: The face turned to the world. Philemon: A figure of the psyche who knew more than Jung did. The Phoenix: Burned, and risen from its own ashes.