Within the depth-psychology corpus, the Ass emerges as a polyvalent symbol of considerable hermeneutic density, functioning simultaneously as bearer of sacred burdens, vessel of instinctual wisdom, and object of ritual inversion. Jung’s engagement with the ass spans several registers: the festum asinorum, in which the congregation brayed in mock-liturgical affirmation, reveals the trickster’s capacity to infiltrate and subvert ecclesiastical order; the mock-crucifixion graffito of the Palatine—where a crucified figure bears an ass’s head—implicates the animal in the dangerous theriomorphism surrounding both Jewish and Christian divinity. Nietzsche’s ‘Ass Festival’ in Zarathustra provides a deliberate blasphemous parody, the ass’s eternal ‘Ye-a’ functioning as a satirical image of passive, unreflective affirmation. Balaam’s ass, treated by Jung as paradigmatic of the animal unconscious that perceives what the ego cannot, grounds the motif in biblical typology and extends into medieval heretical literature. The Apuleian Golden Ass furnishes a redemptive arc in which animality is the precondition for initiation into the mysteries of Isis. Edinger’s Jungian reading of the triumphal entry underscores the ass as a symbol of the humble vehicle for divine manifestation. These positions share a common axis: the ass concentrates the tension between instinct and spirit, abasement and revelation.
they were all kneeling like children and credulous old women, and worshipping the ass… He bears our burden, he has taken upon himself the likeness of a slave, he is patient from the heart and he never says Nay
Nietzsche’s ‘Ass Festival’ presents the ass as an ironic deity of passive affirmation, whose braying ‘Ye-a’ parodies Christian submission and exposes the slavish dimensions of religious devotion.
, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883thesis
the danger of theriomorphism lay uncomfortably close… The suspicion of blasphemy becomes quite open in Nietzsche’s ‘Ass Festival’, which is a deliberately blasphemous parody of the mass.
Radin identifies the ass festival tradition as a site where theriomorphic symbolism threatened to collapse the boundary between sacred and profane, culminating in Nietzsche’s explicit blasphemous inversion.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956thesis
the festum asinorum… the ass procession went right into the church. At the conclusion of each part of the high mass that followed, the whole congregation brayed, that is, they all went ‘Y-a’ like a donkey
Jung reads the festum asinorum as a survival of the trickster spirit within Christian ceremonial, where the ass’s irruption into sacred liturgy enacts the return of archaic, instinctual religious energies.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959thesis
The mock crucifixion on the Palatine shows the Crucified with an ass’s head, which may perhaps be a reference to the old legend that the image of an ass was worshipped in the temple at Jerusalem. Balaam’s ass human speech
Jung traces the ass’s mythological range from the Palatine graffito’s theriomorphic Christ to Balaam’s speaking ass, establishing the animal as a carrier of both profane mockery and genuine prophetic communication.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
It frequently happens that animals talk, and it means precisely what the talking ape is, the intelligent manifestation of the unconscious appearing in the animal… The same is true of the ass. Balaam’s ass is a good example.
Jung interprets the speaking ass of Balaam as an archetypal manifestation of the unconscious, whose superior perceptual capacity—especially regarding death and the future—the ego routinely underestimates.
, Dream Interpretation Ancient and Modern: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1941, 2014thesis
BEHOLD, THY KING COMETH UNTO THEE, MEEK, AND SITTING UPON AN ASS, AND A COLT THE FOAL OF AN ASS
Edinger’s Jungian commentary on the triumphal entry foregrounds the ass as the symbolic vehicle of humility through which divine kingship manifests, fulfilling prophetic pattern and inverting regal expectation.
, The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary on the Life of Christ, 1987supporting
In the Golden Ass of Apuleius the process of redemption begins at the moment when the hero, who has been changed into an ass because of his dissolute life, succeeds in snatching a bunch of roses from the hand of the priest of Isis
Jung reads Apuleius’s ass-transformation as an alchemical-initiatory allegory in which animality is the necessary nadir from which redemption through the feminine divine principle becomes possible.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
What about the ass in the stable? It is no real way to leave the stable door open… if we don’t acknowledge it, then with an increasing amount of morality, of consciousness, we find very efficient means of locking the stable door, and then the ass dies
Jung uses the ass as a metaphor for the instinctual-bodily dimension of the psyche, arguing that moral repression does not extinguish but rather starves this dimension, with grave psychological consequences.
, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939, 1988supporting
Regarding the three-legged ass, they say that it stands amid the wide-formed ocean, and its feet are three, eyes six, mouths nine, ears two, and horn one, body white, food spiritual, and it is righteous.
The Bundahish’s cosmic three-legged ass, cited by Jung in his alchemical studies, extends the symbol into Iranian cosmology, where the animal bears attributes of spiritual purity and sacred righteousness.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944supporting
we call a person a goose, a cow, a hen, a snake, an ox, or an ass. These uncomplimentary epithets are familiar
Jung notes in passing that projection of unconscious contents onto others frequently takes the form of animal epithets including ‘ass,’ illustrating how theriomorphic language betrays the mechanism of projection.
, Civilization in Transition, 1964aside
when an ass eats thistles, his lips have the lettuce to match them
Von Franz records a proverbial usage of the ass in medieval learned discourse, where the animal’s indiscriminate appetite serves as a satirical figure for unsuitable intellectual pretension.
, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966aside