The Archetypal Symbolism of Animals

In The Archetypal Symbolism of Animals, Barbara Hannah, a student and a close friend of C.G. Jung, presents lectures on the symbolic meaning of several domestic and wild animals. According to Jung, the animal is sublime and, in fact, represents the "divine" side of the human psyche. He believed that animals live much more in contact with a "secret" order in nature itself and—far more than human beings—live in close contact with "absolute knowledge" of the unconscious. In contrast to humankind, the animal is the living being that follows its own inner laws beyond good and evil—and is, in this sense, superior.