Parsifal, the path to the Self

Why did Jung read and re-read Parsifal? Why did Wagner rewrite the Grail legend at the end of his life? This rewriting can be read as a great active imagination, in which the author reweaves his whole life. Born without a father, like Parsifal, with whom he identified, he transmuted the power of the Great Mother into the figure of the sacred vase, confronting his shadow, his anima and the power of the Self, forty years before The Red Book. At the centre of the opera, the Good Friday scene, paralleling that of Jung’s crucifixion at the end of the Liber primus, shows the central place of sacrifice in the relationship with the Self.