Description of the Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious


The works of Carl G. Jung are voluminous and profound. He developed the study of the unconscious part of the psyche beyond the negative aspects emphasized by Freud, and found within the collective unconscious the source of all inspirations and instincts -- including the beautiful and spiritual. The uniting or integration of the conscious (thinking) mind with the unconscious mind became the foundation of psychological wholeness and balance in Jung's practice of modern psychology.

The following is from the "Definition" portion of Jung's lecture in 1936 on "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious", Collected Works, Vol. 9.i, pars. 87-110.

The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that is does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious, but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired but owe their existence exclusively to heredity. Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes.

The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable correlate to the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere. Mythological research calls them "motifs"; in the psychology of primitives they correspond to Levy-Bruhl's concept of "representations collectives," and in the field of comparative religion they have been defined by Hubert and Mauss as "categories of the imagination." Adolf Bastian long ago called them "elementary" or "primordial thoughts." From these references, it should be clear enough that my idea of the archetype -- literally a pre-existent form -- does not stand alone, but is something that is recognized and named in other fields of knowledge.

My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually, but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.

From Carl Jung's "The Structure of the Psyche", 1927:

Just as some kind of analytical technique is needed to understand a dream, so a knowledge of mythology is needed in order to grasp the meaning of a content deriving from the deeper levels of the psyche....

The collective unconscious -- so far as we can say anything about it at all -- appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious.

We can see this most clearly if we look at the heavenly constellations, which original chaotic forms were organized through the projection of images. This explains the influence of the stars as asserted by astrologers. These influences are nothing but unconscious, introspective perceptions of the activity of the collective unconscious. Just as the constellations were projected into the heavens, similar figures were projected into legends and fairy tales or upon historical persons.

typed and uploaded 3-11-98, S. E. Schlarb
Passage from the "Definition" portion of Carl Jung's lecture in 1936
"The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious",
Collected Works, Vol. 9.i, pars. 87-110;
and from Carl Jung's "The Structure of the Psyche", 1927, Coll. Works Vol. 8.
Presented in "The Portable Jung", Edited by Joseph Campbell,
translated by R. F. C. Hull, copyrighted & published in USA by Viking Penguin Inc., 1971,
Penguin Books 1976.


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Archetypes

The contents of the collective unconscious are called "archetypes," which means they are original (i.e.,primal), inherited patterns, or forms of thought and experience. They are the ancient, unconscious source of much that we think, do, and say as human beings ....more