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These two books, both consisting mainly of collections of lectures given at various Eranos meetings at Ascona, can serve as source books for archetypal symbolism and for the function of the symbol.
Eliade, in the longest chapter of the book, deals with the spontaneous experiences of the ‘mystic light’, which, according to him, always result in a ‘change of being’ which he defines as ‘access to the world of the spirit’. To him the experience of the ‘Light’ (with capital ‘L’) always signifies an initiation into ‘ultimate reality’, the discovery of the ‘self’ or atman.
His examples are drawn from every possible source including a modern dream and the text of The secret of the golden flower. His final conclusion is formulated in the paradox of the personal discovery of an a priori reality transcending the boundaries of individual experience. It seems justified to translate his examples and conclusions into the language of analytical psychology, in which case we are presented with the raw material for the basic relationship between ego and non-ego.
Another chapter, ‘Mephistopheles and the Androgyne, or the mystery of the whole’, deals with the problem of the coincidentia oppositorum. Eliade maintains that the ambivalence of the deity, ‘the “sympathy” between the creator and Mephistopheles’ is a basic theme of folklore and that ‘spiritual perfection’ consists in the discovery or rediscovery of man's inner ambivalence, or what he calls ‘androgynous nature’. Among other things he interprets intersexual transvestism (‘ritual androgynization’) as expressing this realization. From the psychological point of view this chapter provides material relevant to the symbolism of the mysterium coniunctionis and of the anima/animus relationship.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter, psychologically, is the last entitled ‘Observations on religious symbolism’. Here Eliade discusses the role and function of the religious symbol, which he defines as capable (1) of revealing a modality of realit