The symbol in itself, as a name, is a perfect futility, yet inasmuch as it designates the invisible presence it is exeedingly powerful. It is, then, an approximate designation of an invisible and powerful fact that influences man from the unconscious sphere. If it had come from the conscious sphere, it would have been analysed and understood, and it would have lost its fascination right away. But inasmuch as it is a fact from the unconscious which cannot be dissected by the conscious, it therefore remains an explicit and efficient factor with a definite function. In this case, the function is the very doubtful one indicated in the dream; the Trinity is here said to be an aeroplane, that Isa very modern contrivance for carrying people and goods from place to place in a particular way, not touching the earth but going through the air. It is a machine, and you remember that I have often em-phasized the fact that a symbol functions like a machine in our psychology. Not long ago I came across a book about Oriental religions by a German,® who speaks, among other things, of the influence of Yoga and of the forms of the sacred images in India, and I think I told you that he calls the yantras machines; he holds that they function exactly like machines because they are symbols, symbols being a means of transforming energy. You see, the dream has the same view, it represents the Trinity as a flying machine which lifts people up and carries them. That is the function of the symbol and its value to man. If he could not designate the thing, it would function without him, it would function by itself. I mean, it could seize upon a man, suddenly land on him, like Yahweh in the Old Testament-it took the prophet by the neck and forced him to his will. Without the symbol the divine factor cannot be invoked and worshipped. We use it as a sort of magic means to force the gods; in calling them by the right name, we make them come, we reach their ear and we influence them.
— C.G. Jung
Jung's point about naming is sharper than it first sounds. The symbol does not become powerful because we name it — it was already powerful, seizing prophets by the neck, operating on the psyche whether or not the conscious mind had a handle for it. What naming accomplishes is leverage: you call the thing, and the thing comes to you rather than landing on you unsummoned. That is the difference between a man who dreams of flying machines without understanding what moves through the image and one who recognizes, however approximately, that something is being lifted away from the earth.
The aeroplane detail deserves its weight. A machine that carries people through air without touching the ground — Jung is letting the dream say outright what the symbol does: it lifts you clear of earth, of body, of the soiled and particular. That function is not condemned here, but the word he reaches for is "doubtful." Doubt is the right posture. Transformation of energy is real; the aeroplane moves, carries, conveys. The question the dream quietly presses is where you are being taken, and whether the ground you are lifted from was the very thing that needed to be entered rather than escaped.
C.G. Jung·Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-1930·1984