Carl Gustav Jung
(1875-1961),
Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical
Psychology
An archetype is a resonance figure, a "chord", formed in the long course of human evolution through resonance from repetetive, typical themes of existence, to a degree and intensity, so that it has become "standing waves" in the unconscious depths of the psyche and has almost generated a life of its own.
A detailed theory of how archetypes interact is formulated by the scientist Rubert Sheldrake. Talking about how the different fields influence formation, he says: "similar things influence similar things over time an space. In this understanding, growing organisms are shaped by fields which are both within and around them, fields which contains, as it were, the form of the organism".
Jungs "analytical psychology" is a deep and complex theory that actually started as a dream:
He was in a two-floor house, which he
somehow knew to be his own. The upper floor was a kind of salon
furnished in rococo style with some fine paintings on the walls. It
seemed a pleasant place to live, but Jung
realised suddenly he did not know what the other floor was like.
He
descended the stairs and reached the ground floor. There he
discovered everything was much older, in a style dating to the
fifteenth or sixteenth century. The floors were red brick, the
furnishing medieval, and everywhere was rather dark.
As he
continued to explore, he happened on a heavy door. He opened it and
found a descending stairway. This took him into a beautifully vaulted
chamber with walls of stone block and brick.
The architectural
style convinced him this portion of the house must be Roman. He
examined the stone slab floor and in one of the slabs discovered a
ring. The stone slab lifted when Jung
pulled the ring, and he saw a stairway of narrow stone steps leading
down into the depths. He descended down the steps, and discovered a
low cave cut into the rock. Thick dust lay on the floor and in the
dust were scattered bones and broken pottery, like remains of a
primitive culture. Jung
discovered two human skulls, obviously very old and
half-disintegrated. Then he woke up.
Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Key aspects of Jung’s model of the psyche
Jolande
Jacoby: CG Jung
p.119
A: Represents the persona
mediating between the ego and the outside world
B: Is the
animus or anima, mediating between the ego and the inner world of the
unconscious
C: Is at once the ego and the persona, which
represent our phenotype, outwardly visible disposition.
D:
Is the genotype element, our invisible, latent, unconscious inner
nature.
Phenotype and Genotype:
Phenotype
The observable physical or biochemical characteristics of an organism, as determined by both genetic make-up and environmental influences. The expression of a specific trait, such as stature or blood type, based on genetic and environmental influences.
Genotype
The genetic make-up, as distinguished from the physical appearance, of an organism or a group of organisms.
The combination of alleles located on homologous chromosomes that determines a specific characteristic or trait.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/g/g0086600.html
Key aspects of
Jungs
model of the psyche
The conscious ego is the centre of
the conscious area of the psyche, and provides the individual with
his or her sense of identity and purposefulness.
The ego
organises and structures the personality
The personal
unconscious has its own laws and functions, and it is capable of
autonomously affecting and interrupting the conscious ego.
The
collective unconscious contains unconscious, collective,
inherited contents, among them, the instincts and the
archetypes.
It is a force within the individual with a potential
of either creativity or destruction.
The
collective unconscious is the common bed rock (Karmic issues)
level of the human psyche, shared by all human beings.
Key aspects of Jungs model of the psyche
The persona is the masks, the facades and the roles the individual identifies with. It is a functional complex which has come into existence for reasons of adaptation or necessary convenience, but by no means is it identical with the individuality. The persona [..] is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be.
The persona is a functional complex which has come into existence for reasons of adaptation or necessary convenience, but by no means is it identical with the individuality.
C. G. Jung
The unconscious side of the persona
is the Soul-image. Jung
uses the Latin male and female names for the soul, the animus and
the anima. The Soul-image is always represented by the persons
opposite gender.
M. Hyde and M McGuiness: Jung for Beginners p.93
The Animus / Anima
Animus Anima: Womans psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos
C. G. Jung
Jung
has compared the masculine with the sun and the feminine with the
moon: Womans consciousness has a lunar rather than a solar character.
Its light is the mild light of the moon, which merges things together
rather than separates them. It does not show objects in all their
pitiless discreteness and separateness like the harsh, glaring light
of day, but blend in a deceptive shimmer the near and the far,
magically transforming little things into big things, high into low,
softening all colour into a bluish haze, and blending the nocturnal
landscape into a unsuspected unity.
It needs a very moon-like
consciousness indeed to hold a large family together regardless of
all the differences, and to talk and act in such a way that the
harmonious relating of the parts to the whole is not only disturbed,
but is actually enhanced.
And where the ditch is too deep, a ray
of moonlight smoothens it over
C. G. Jung
The Animus / Anima
The animus /anima is an archetypal inner image of a person of the opposite sex, normally an unknown individual.
A
woman has an inner animus, a man an inner anima
These inner images have an extreme
power and if the anima / animus is showing up in a dream, it will
leave the dreamer deeply touched and fascinated. The fascination can
be stronger than if the person had been physical.
The animus /
anima is a projection
of 50% of yourself!
The animus / anima represents a potential for
expansion and growth, it is not just a projection
from our personal unconscious, it is collective, there is much more
energy that can be utilised in growth.
An animus / anima dream
will therefore often have a message that can reach several years into
the future.
Our etheric body is the opposite sex to our physical,
so meeting our inner animus or anima means an opening into our own
etheric structure, and thus a substantial growth and expansion.
The
animus anima offers self-knowledge (the other is the dreamer
herself).
The meeting reveals the main direction for the total
libido or life-energy.
The animus or anima invites you on an inner
journey, revealing what you essentially are looking for in sex and
love.
Edited from Jes Bertelsen
Stanislav
Grof: The Adventure of Self-discovery p.230
The Shadow
The shadow is a person (or an
animal) of the same sex which you feel negatively against. The shadow
can be known as well as unknown. It can gradually transform into a
"GUIDE". There are shadow sides that have nothing to do
with the emotions.
The shadow is said to be "the Guardian of
the Threshold" into the astral.
Edited from Jes Bertelsen
Everybody carries a shadow, and
the less it is embodied in the individuals conscious life, the
blacker and denser it is. If the repressed tendencies, the shadow,
where obviously evil, there would be no problem whatever. But the
shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive unadapted, and awkward;
not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities
which would in a way vitalise and embellish human existence.
The Shadow
The
thing a person has no wish to be
Furthermore, the shadow is always in
contact with other interests, so that is continually subjected to
modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from
consciousness, it never gets corrected.
The shadow is the thing a
person has no wish to be. It is of the same sex, and can surface as a
person (or an animal) which you feel negatively against.
The
shadow can be known as well as unknown. It can gradually transform
into a guide. The shadow is in a compensatory relationship with the
relative light of the conscious ego.
The shadow can be a person of
the same sex who exhibits positive qualities, wise, intuitive,
authoritative, outspoken, blissful etc- If the individual do not want
to acknowledge these qualities in himself.
The shadow embodies a
lack of flexibility in the emotional level, and accordingly a lack of
emotional clarity in connection to oneself and others, as the shadow
normally is projected.
Negatively loaded animals in dreams move
the consciousness downwards, to deeper levels, to aggression and fear
and depression,
and thus they should be handled with care in dream work.
Edited from Jes Bertelsen
This
diagram is an attempt to clarify
Jung’s
model of the psyche
A represents the persona
mediating between the ego and the outside World.
B is the
animus or anima, mediating between the ego and the inner world of the
unconscious
C is at once the ego and the persona, which
represent our phenotypic, outwardly visible psychic disposition.
D
is the genotypical element, our invisible, latent, unconscious inner
nature.
Persona and soul-image (animus-anima) stand in a
compensatory relation to one another; the more rigidly the mask, the
persona, cuts off the individual from his natural, instinctual life,
the more archaic, undifferentiated, and powerful becomes the
soul-image.
It is extremely difficult to free oneself from
either of them. Yet such liberation becomes an urgent necessity when
the individual is unable to distinguish himself from persona and
soul-image
Jolande Jacoby: CG Jung
The
four functions
How we go about processing our inner and outer worlds
Jung
distinguished four properties of psychic energy,
which he termed
the four functions,
paired in two sets of opposites:
Thinking
- feeling And Intuition - sensation
The functions are the means which
orient ourselves to experience.
In any individual, one function is
conscious (Superior), its opposite is unconscious (inferior), and the
remaining two are partially conscious and partially unconscious
(auxiliary). The functions combine with the two attitude types
(Extrovert and introvert) to give eight functional types.
Jolande Jacoby: CG Jung
Archetypes
Jung
identified identical, primordial, inherited images, or
modes
of perception in the
collective unconscious.
The archetypes can be conscious or
unconscious. Unconscious archetypes, if they are of the same sex, are
called shadow. An archetype, conscious or unconscious, of the
opposite sex is called animus if it is a womans inner male, anima if
it is a mans inner female.
“The structures
manifest strikingly similar in dreams from people of different creed,
sex, religion and culture, and are images or ideas which regulate
perception itself.
These images also appear in world mythology,
and Jung
concluded that these archetypes represented absolutes in the human
psyche.
The archetypes are both linked to the instincts and to
spirituality; they are charged with intensity and works automatically
from the unconscious.
Archetypes can be the father, the mother,
the wise old woman, the magician, the fool, the devil, the trickster,
the lover etc.
Edited fromJes Bertelsen Course notes
Jung says: The starry vault of Heaven is in truth the open books of cosmic projection in which are myths and archetypes. In this vision, astrology and alchemy, the two classic functionaries of the psychology of the collective unconscious, join hands
As Jung
says: There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in
life, the endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our
psychic condition
[…] archetypes does not represent anything
external, non-psychic, although they do, of course, owe the
concreteness of their imagery to impressions received from without.
Rather, independently of, and sometimes in direct contrast to, the
outward forms they may take, they represent the life and essence of a
non-individual psyche.
C. G. Jung
As we understand it,
archetypes can be modified
Through inner work and
psychotherapy,
But it is only the fire of kundalini
that
can transform them.
Individuation
A healthy person wanting to go in depth with exploration and utilising her qualities. Today it is a common understanding that individuation is the goal, but on Jungs time it was new, psychotherapy was mostly about curing malfunctions in the psyche.
Jung
described the individuation process as
…Moving towards a
hypothetical goal, to be a Self
Jung
describes the Self in the following way:
The Self is not only the centre, but
also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and
unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego is
the centre of the conscious mind
In
Jungs
opinion, the highest condition, and the one he knew himself, was one
where the ego clearly acknowledged itself to be only relative, a
function of the higher centre, the Self.
It was Jungs
opinion, at least in his public works, that man is not able to change
the level of consciousness towards the Self. For that reason he
refused to occupy himself with meditation and higher consciousness.
The Self is
individualised Spirit
Paramahansa
Yogananda
The Self is […] the divine essence of man, as distinguished from the ordinary self, which is the human personality or ego. The self is individualised Spirit, whose essential nature is ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss. The self or soul is mans inner fountainhead of love, wisdom, peace, courage, compassion, and all other divine qualities.
The Self
Only when this midpoint, the Self, has been found and integrated, can one speak about a well-rounded man. For only then has he solved the problem of his relation to the two realms, which make up every mans life, the outward and the inner reality. Both ethically and intellectually, this is an extremely difficult task, which can be successfully performed only by the fortunate few, those elected and favoured by grace.
Jolande Jacoby: CG Jung
The process of
individuation is inherent in man
In its broad outlines the individuation
process is inherent in man and follows regular patterns. It falls
into two main, independent parts, characterised by contrasting and
complementary qualities.
These parts are the first and second
halves of life. The task of the first part is initiation into outward
reality. Through consolidation of the ego, differentiation of the
main function and of the dominant attitude type, and development of
an appropriate persona, it aims at the adaptation of the individual
to the demands of his environment.
The task of the second half is
a so-called “initiation into the inner reality, a
deeper self-knowledge and knowledge of humanity, a yearning back to
the traits of ones nature that have hitherto remained unconscious or
become so. By raising these traits to consciousness the individual
achieves an inward and outward bond with the world and the cosmic
order.
Jolande Jacoby: CG Jung
Individuation and the
Self
The process of individuation, the path to become who
we are
The process of
individuation can be described in many ways.
A common way
seems to be to divide it in two steps or aspects:
The completion of the individual,
the development of the common consciousness to its maximum level of
quality.
To work towards quantitative shifts of consciousness,
Move towards higher states of consciousness
Edited from Jes Bertelsen: Droemme Chakrasymboler og meditation
The development of the personality
is at once a blessing and a curse. We must pay dearly for it, and the
price is isolation and loneliness: its first fruit is the conscious
and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the
undifferentiated and unconscious herd.
Jung
But to stand alone is not enough,
above all one must be faithful to ones own law:
Only the man who
can consciously assent to the power of the inner voice becomes a
personality
Jung
-And only a personality can find a
proper place in the collectivity; only personalities have the power
to create a community, that is, to become integral parts of a human
group and not merely a number in the mass. For the mass is only a sum
of individuals, and can never, like a community, become a living
organism that receives and bestows life.
[…] Thus
self-realisation, both in the individual and in the extra personal,
collective sense, becomes a moral decision, and it is this moral
decision which lends force to the process of self-fulfilment that
Jung
calls individuation.
Jolande Jacoby: CG Jung.
Tarot as stages
in the individuation process
Jung
described the tarot as archetypes, depicting the stages in the
individuation process.
Each individual card shows a step in this
process, and thus the cards can be used for contemplations on the
path of individuation.
We reccomend you to try
our tarot meditation on our
website:
http://www.starbridge.com.au/en/online-meditation-on-tarot.htm
The process of individuation
can be separated in two halves:
The individual and his or hers relation to the outer world; this is solar in its nature, extrovert, active, expansive, positive.
The confrontation of the self with its psychological depth. This confrontation is lunar in its nature, introvert, meditating, passive in relation to the physical world.
The Major Arcana Tarot no
10, Wheel of Life
marks the transition from one to the other.
Edited and translated (from Danish) K. Frank Jensen: Tarot p. 15 - 16
Tarot as stages in the individuation process
0.
The Fool
The
newborn baby, pure, innocent, unconscious of self.
1.
The Magician
Conscious starts to wake up. The individual I
emerges. The individual shows the tools with which it is to conquer
the world.
2.
The High Priestess
3.
The Empress
4.
The Emperor
5.
The Hierophant
The infant is faced with four powers: the
male, the female,
the material and the spiritual
6.
The Lovers
The first choice, the family is left in order to be
with the partner.
Responsibility is accepted for the further
journey.
7.
The Chariot
A vehicle, the persona, is formed in order to fare
in the world.
8.
Justice
Physical maturity has been achieved, the conscious
aspects of the person have been developed, but the unconscious is
still untouched.
9.
The Hermit
The time of self-search has come, if one is so
inclined.
10.
The Wheel of fortune
The ascension has been achieved; it
is time to commence the descension.
11.
Strength
Everybody has to face difficulties, but fearless
confrontation can disarm the primary forces of the
unconscious.
12.
The Hanged Man
Values and goals must be turned upside down. It
is necessary to gather courage to relinquish the past for the sake of
an uncertain future. If further development is to happen, something
has to be sacrificed.
13.
Death
Consciousness has to change, and the ego must transcend
the previous limits. It is necessary to destroy the old self in order
to set the energy free.
14.
Temperance
Sacrificing the cravings of the ego renews the
contact with the powers of life. The descension towards the lost
challenges and treasures has succeeded. The conscious and the
unconscious has reached each other, balance has been
achieved.
15.
The Devil
The dangers of the path are not over. The powers of
the unconscious have been set free, and the traveller must transform
them to a positive form of energy, or obey them as they
are.
16.
The Tower
The thunder of light from insight. The present from
Lucifer. A thunderbolt, destroying what is not of its own
nature.
This is the source of power set free when the block
between the conscious and unconscious is no longer there.
17.
The Star
The symbol of higher consciousness, the way-mark
through the darkness.
18.
The Moon
The great test is ahead. The inner light is no longer
accessible, everything seems to be illusion. In the dark night of the
Soul, the spiritual fundament must pass the test.
19.
The Sun
Fusion of the mortal and immortal self. The merging of
opposites. The night is over and a new day is at hand.
20.
The Judgement
The purged Self has become oneness and is
resurrected.
21
The World
The androgynous figure in the mandala-like
wreath shows that psychic oneness and a mature personality have been
achieved.
The figure may also simultaneous be the foetus, the
reincarnation, binding the circle of events back to the first card,
the Fool.
Edited and translated
(from Danish) K. Frank Jensen: Tarot p. 15 - 16
Synchronicity:
This is the phenomenon
that makes the use of Astrology,
I Ching and Cosmic card and
Tarot meaningful.
This is a term for events that happens simultaneously or in obvious connection with each other, but where the connection is not cause and effect.
Behind synchronicity is probably the same law that lead to the legend of Indiras necklace and now leads scientists to the hologram theories.
Multiple
Choice questions for Week 9
Jung and
Archetypes
Multiple Choice Answer 1: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): Jung divided the human psyche up in a number of categories, most strikingly probably was his invention of the term ‘collective unconscious’ now abused by all sorts of unscientific ideas regarding the interconnectedness of humans etc.
Multiple Choice Answer 2: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): Jung’s concept of persona is interesting, this is a mask, a façade, this is where most of us live our lives.
Multiple Choice Answer 3: True / False (Cross out the wrong answer): Jung seems to indicate that humans are bisexual, having a "animus" and "anima" side. Truly that must only be people with unstable gender-identification that is that way.
Multiple
Choice Answer 4: True / False (Cross
out the wrong answer): An
individuation is a process of moving towards our higher
Self.
According to Jung
that is maybe a lifelong commitment, but nevertheless within reach.
