The Brocken Spectre

1. The Brocken Spectre The apparently enormous and magnified shadow of an observer, cast upon the upper surfaces of clouds opposite the sun. It occurs when someone standing on a higher altitude can see his own shadow cast onto a cloud at a lower altitude below him. The head of the figure is often surrounded by rings of coloured light. The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name.

5. Carl Jung. “Memories, Dreams, Reelections” (1963). “I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment…Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me... When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a ‘specter of the Brocken,’ my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying.”