Carl Jung: I want to tell you that your horse-boar-monster has had its aftereffects in me.

To Peter Birkhauser

Dear Herr Birkhauser, 2 November 1960

I want to tell you that your horse-boar-monster has had its aftereffects in me. As a prelude to my latest illness I had the following dream:
In an unknown place and at an unknown time, as though standing in the air, I am with a primitive chieftain who might just as well have lived 50,000 years ago.

We both know that now at last the great event has occurred: the primeval boar, a gigantic mythological beast, has finally been hunted down and killed.

It has been skinned, its head cut off, the body is divided lengthwise like a slaughtered pig, the two halves only just hanging together at the neck.

We are occupied with the task of bringing the huge mass of meat to our tribe. The task is difficult.

Once the meat fell into a roaring torrent that swept it into the sea.

We had to fetch it back again. Finally we reach our tribe.

The camp, or settlement, is laid out in a rectangle, either in the middle of a primeval forest or on an island in the sea.

A great ritual feast is going to be celebrated. The background of this dream is as follows:

At the beginning of our Kalpa (cosmic age) Vishnu created the new world in the form of a beautiful maiden lying on the waters.

But the great serpent succeeded in dragging the new creation down into the sea, from which Vishnu retrieved it, diving down in the shape of a boar.

(A parallel to this dream is the Cabbalistic idea that at the end of days Yahweh will slay the Leviathan and serve it up as a meal for the righteous.)

At the end of this cosmic age Vishnu will change into a white horse and create a new world. This refers to Pegasus, who ushers in the Aquarian Age.

I wanted to let you know of this development.


Yours sincerely,

C.G. Jung Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 606-607