Note 856 — Chapter VI

The whistling and snapping is a tasteless, archaic relic, an allurement for the theriomorphic divinity, probably also an infantile reminiscence (quieting the child by whistling and snapping). Of similar significance is the roaring at the divinity. (“Mithr. Lit.,” p. 13): “You are to look at him and give forth a long roar, as with a horn, using all your breath, pressing your sides, and kiss the amulet ... etc.” “My soul roars with the voice of a hungry lion,” says Mechthild von Magdeburg. “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after God.”—Psalms xlii: 2. The ceremonial custom, as so often happens, has dwindled into a figure of speech. Dementia praecox, however, revivifies the old custom, as in the “Roaring miracle” of Schreber. See the latter’s “Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken,” by which he demands that God, i.e. the Father, so inadequately oriented with humanity, take notice of his existence.

The infantile reminiscence is clear, that is, the childish cry to attract the attention of the parent to himself; the whistling and smacking for the allurement of the theriomorphic attribute, the “helpful animal.” (See Rank: “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero.”)