What are Jungian archetypes?
“The archetype an sich is an ‘irrepresentable’ factor, a ‘disposition’ which starts functioning at a given moment in the development of the human mind and arranges the material of consiousness into definite patterns.” ( “Trinity,” p. 148)
“The archetypes are there preconsciously, and presumably they form the structural dominants of the psyche in general. They may be compared to the invisible presence of the crystal lattice in a saturated solution.” (Trinity, p. 149)
“the single archetypes are not isolated from each other in the unconscious, but are in a state of contamination,, of the most complete, mutual interpenetration and interfusion” (“Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious” (1939–40 edn.), p. 91.)
“What an archetypal content is always expressing is first and foremost a figure of speech. If it speaks of the sun and identifies with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the force that makes for the life and health of man, it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet–to the perpetual vexation of the intellect–remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula.” (The psychology of the child archetype, p. 157; Essays on a Science of Mythology , p. 105.)
To define it from a functional point of view, we might say that the archetype as such is concentrated psychic energy, but that the symbol provides the mode of manifestation by which the archetype becomes discernible. In this sense Jung defines the symbol as the “essence and image of psychic energy.” Consequently one can never encounter the archetype as such directly, but only indirectly, when it is manifested in the archetypal image, in a symbol, or in a complex or symptom. As long as something is unconscious, no statement can be made about it; hence any statement about the archetype is an “inference.” (Jacobi, p. 75)
the archetype should be regarded first and foremost as the magnetic field and energy center underlying the transformation of the psychic processes into images. As long as it rests in the womb of the collective unconscious, it is only a “structure whose form is not at first determinable but which is endowed with the faculty of appearing in definite forms by way of projection”. (p. 48 Jacobi)
Every archetype is capable of infinite development and differentiation…The deeper the unconscious stratum from which the archetype stems, the scantier will be its basic design, but the more possibilities of development will be contained in it, and the richer it will be its meanings. (55-56, Jac)
“That numbers have an archetypal foundation is not, by the way, a conjecture of mine but of certain mathematicians, as we shall see in due course. Hence it is not such an audacious conclusion after all if we define number psychologically as an archetype of order which has become conscious. Remarkably enough, the psychic images of wholeness which are spontaneously produced by the unconscious, the symbols of the self in mandala form, also have a mathematical structure.” (Synchonicity, par. 870)
The number of archetypes operative in man coincides with that of the “nodal points” of the collective unconscious and seems to be very great. But the number of symbols based on them must be conceived as infinitely greater, since individual states of mind also play a part in their formation; their variations are indeed unlimited. “Their specific content appears only in the course of the individual’s [or groups] life, when personal experience is taken up in precisely these forms” (i.e., the archetypes). As our insights and experiences change. the meaning of a symbol can appear in an ever-changing light or open up to us gradually, so that this meaning and even the very form of the symbol are placed in continuously new contexts and transformed accordingly. (Jac, 116-7)
The way. (The Great Mother an Analysis of the Archetype, Neumann, pp. 8-9)
The Great Mother as partial aspect of the Feminine, ‘‘The qualities associated with it are maternal solicitude and sympathy; the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and spiritual exaltation that transcend reason; any helpful instinct or impulse; all that is benign, all that cherishes and sustains, that fosters growth and fertility. The place of magic transformation and rebirth, together with the underworld and its inhabitants, are presided over by the mother’’ (1969a: par. 158).
The Child archetype, Jung writes, ‘‘represents the strongest, the most in-eluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself’’, ‘‘the ‘child’ is on the one hand delivered helpless into the power of terrible enemies and in continual danger of extinction, while on the other he possesses powers far exceeding those of ordinary humanity’’ ((1969a: par. 289).
The Kore (Maiden), innocence and love
The Trickster, ‘his fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, half animal, half divine, his exposure to all kinds of tortures, and—last but not least—his approximation to the figure of a saviour’’ (Jung 1969a: par. 456)
The Wise Old Man, ‘The wise old man appears in dreams in the guise of a magician, doctor, priest, teacher, pro-fessor, grandfather, or any other person possessing authority. The archetype of spirit in the shape of a man, hobgoblin, or an-imal always appears in a situation where insight, understand-ing, good advice, determination, planning, etc., are needed but cannot be mustered on one’s own resources’’ (Jung 1969a: par. 398); He gives the necessary magical talisman’
“Under a ‘symbolic form’ shall be understood every energy of spirit through which a spiritual meaning-content is connected to a concrete sensual sign and is intrinsically bound to that sign.” Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs (Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, 1983), p. 175
By ‘symbolic form’ I mean that energy of the spirit through which a mental meaning-content is attached to a sensual sign and inwardly dedicated to this sign. (“Der Begriff der Symbolischen Form im Aufbau der Geisteswissenschaften”)
“feeling-toned complex” as “feeling-toned groups of representations”
“focal or nodal points of psychic life, which must not be absent, because if they were, psychic activity would come to a standstill.”
By way of illustration we might have recourse to a somewhat daring comparison and say: Although psychic energy operates continuously, it is “quantum-like” in nature. The quanta in our comparison are the complexes, innumerable little nodal points in an invisible network. In them, as distinguished from the “empty” spaces, the energy charge of the unconscious collective psyche is concentrated, acting, in a manner of speaking, as the center of a magnetic field. If the charge of one (or more) of these “nodal points” becomes so powerful that it “magnetically” (acting as a “nuclear cell”) attracts everything to itself (just as a cancer cell begins to proliferate, “devouring” the healthy cells and forming a state within the state) and so confronts the ego with an alien entity, a “splinter psyche” that has become “autonomous”–then we have a complex. If a “nodal point” is enriched only by mythical or universal human material, we may speak of a complex originating in the realm of the collective unconscious; but if individually acquired material is superimposed on it, i.e., if it appears in the cloak of a personally conditioned conflict, then we may speak of a complex originating in the domain of the personal unconscious. Jacobi, pp 24-25
Constellated ones to be integrated with ego-consciousness.
Parallel of abstract art to narrative art, cosmology as physics and as story.
Galois extension, resolution, blow-up, singularity, sublation, Aufhebung.
Jacobi, Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the psychology of CJ Jung,
Erich Neumann, The Great Mother an Analysis of the Archetype
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