Note 848 — Chapter VIII · THE SACRIFICE

560Miss Miller’s snake is green. The snake of my patient is also green. In “Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” p. 161, she says: “Then a little green snake came into my mouth; it had the finest, loveliest sense, as if it had human understanding; it wanted to say something to me, almost as if it had wished to kiss me.” Spielrein’s patient says of the snake: “It is an animal of God, which has such wonderful colors, green, blue and white. The rattlesnake is green; it is very dangerous. The snake can have a human mind, it can have God’s judgment; it is a friend of children. It will save those children who are necessary for the preservation of human life” (Jahrbuch, Vol. III, p. 366). Here the phallic meaning is unmistakable. The snake as the transformed prince in the fairy tale has the same meaning. See Riklin: “Wish Fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy Tales.”