ABSTRACT
A recurrence of the ancient symbol of the uroboros, 'tail-eater' round the dreamer. It appears in later dreams as a clock, a circle with a central point, a round target for shooting practice, a clock that is a perpetuum mobile, a ball, a globe, a round table, a basin, and so on. In a manuscript from the 7th century, the evangelists are represented with the heads of their symbolic animals instead of human heads. When we find a triumphant Christ in the rose window of a medieval church, we rightly assume that this must be a central symbol of the Christian cult. At the same time we also assume that any religion which is rooted in the history of a people is much as an expression of their psychology as the form of political government, for instance, that the people have developed. The philosophy of the Upanishads corresponds to a psychology that long ago recognized the relativity of the gods.
