The Seba library treats Brook in 5 passages, across 3 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Kohn, Livia, Jan N. Bremmer).
we come to a brook over which there is no bridge. It is too broad to step across, so we must jump... before this happens, something of a purely psychic nature takes place: a decision is made
Jung uses the unbridged brook as a paradigm case for demonstrating that a purely psychic act of decision necessarily precedes and organises every bodily response to an obstacle.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
I saw, on the dark slope opposite, a brook flowing down with a metallic shimmer, and two paths leading upwards, one to the left, the other to the right, winding like serpents.
In this personal dream reported by Jung, a shimmering brook bisects the landscape between two serpentine ascent-paths, functioning as a classic threshold symbol marking bifurcation and the moment before initiatory choice.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959thesis
the yin-yang master would take a prefashioned doll, breathe energy into it, stroke it several times and cast it into the Brook of Seven in the capital. Taking its name from this, the ritual became known as the Seven Brook Purification
Kohn documents how the brook serves as a cultic purification medium in Heian Japan, receiving pollution-laden surrogate bodies and thereby marking the transition between ritual contamination and renewed ritual cleanliness.
, Daoism Handbook, 2000supporting
a man with a spade was grubbing about near a brook. Suddenly a tiny white mouse appeared which wanted to cross the little waterco[urse]
Bremmer cites a Danish folkloric dream-narrative in which a soul-shaped mouse attempts to cross a brook, illustrating the ancient dualistic conception of the soul as a separable entity that must navigate a liminal water-boundary.
, The Early Greek Concept of the Soul, 1983supporting
we reached a lovely large clearing, bisected by a clear, cool brook with a waterfall about ten feet in height. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall became our bath.
Jung's autobiographical account of an East African expedition notes the camp brook as a site of refreshment and communal gathering, incidentally reinforcing the Jungian correlation of clear running water with natural, revitalising psychic energy.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963aside