Resisting Ourselves Is Madness. "The Archetypes & The Collective Unconscious," by Carl Jung

Why Read It

Carl Jung’s impact on our understanding of consciousness, especially in the West, is difficult to measure. Jung died in 1961, but culture is still in the early stages of truly grasping, unpacking and assimilating Jung’s ideas and body of work.

Jung contributed a significant amount of material to our understanding of consciousness, but perhaps his greatest contribution was the notion of collective consciousness. Early in his career, Jung was a student and colleague of Sigmund Freud at a point in time when Freud was widely accepted as the single greatest living authority on human psychology. Freud anointed Jung as “his successor and crown prince,” and everyone expected Jung to spend the rest of his career as the heir apparent of Freud’s kingdom and to work to spread Freud’s ideas.

However, trouble was brewing. Freud had little interest in Jung’s growing conviction of the collective unconscious. Freud’s tabula rasa view of the human psyche was at odds with Jung’s view that there existed a collective unconscious that acted as the bedrock and foundation out of which human consciousness arose. Jung was also critical of Freud’s obsession with the libido, among other things, and eventually in 1913 Jung formally split from Freud and embarked on his own personal and professional path.

The Perennial Philosophy posits that there is a common truth at the heart of all great spiritual traditions, and Jung’s concepts align closely with this idea. His theory of the collective unconscious suggests there is a shared, deeper layer of the unconscious that houses archetypes—innate, universal psychic dispositions. These archetypes manifest across different cultures and religions, reflecting shared human experiences and values, such as the quest for wholeness (individuation), the balance of opposites, and the journey towards self-realization.

Overview

The collective unconscious refers to a part of the unconscious mind that, unlike the personal unconscious, is shared by all human beings due to their common ancestral past. This collective layer contains archetypes, which are universal, primal symbols and images that exist in all human psyches.

In this book, Jung explores the archetypes of the Self, the Shadow, the Anima and Animus, the Trickster and the Mother. He explains how these archetypes manifest in dreams, myths, and art across different cultures, highlighting their role in shaping human behavior and psychological development. Jung also discusses the process of individuation, a journey of personal development through which a person integrates these unconscious elements into their conscious awareness, leading to psychological wholeness and self-realization.

The book is considered foundational in understanding Jung’s psychological theories and has had a profound impact on the fields of psychology, art, literature, and religious studies. It offers a unique lens through which to view the human mind and its connection to universal patterns and symbols.

Key Takeaways

The Process of Individuation: Individuation is the process of becoming aware of oneself, integrating the unconscious with the conscious. This concept is crucial for spiritual seekers and those using psychedelics as tools for self-discovery, as it emphasizes the journey towards self-realization and wholeness, transcending ego and embracing the true self.
The Role of the Shadow in Personal Growth: Jung’s concept of the Shadow encompasses the repressed, ignored, or unknown aspects of oneself. Recognizing and integrating the Shadow is key in spiritual practices and psychedelic experiences, as it allows for a fuller understanding of oneself and can lead to profound personal transformation.
Archetypes as Pathways to the Collective Unconscious: Jung’s archetypes offer a framework for understanding universal human themes. For spiritual seekers and psychedelic users, these archetypes can serve as gateways to connect with the collective unconscious, offering a rich tapestry of symbols and meanings to explore.
The Healing Power of Myth and Storytelling: Jung believed that myths and storytelling are essential in understanding the human psyche and fostering healing. This is especially relevant for those interested in perennial philosophy, spirituality, and psychedelics, as myths provide a symbolic language for understanding deep psychological truths and guiding one’s spiritual journey.
Transformation Through Confronting the Unconscious: Jung emphasizes the importance of confronting and integrating the unconscious for true transformation. This is particularly relevant for those in spiritual practices or psychedelic explorations, as these experiences often bring unconscious material to the surface, offering opportunities for profound personal growth.

Quotes

~ “The necessary and needful reaction from the collective unconscious expresses itself in archetypally formed ideas. The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.”

~ “It is sufficient to know that there is not a single important idea or view that does not possess historical antecedents. Ultimately they are all founded on primordial archetypal forms whose concreteness dates from a time when consciousness did not think, but only perceived. ‘Thoughts’ were objects of inner perception, not thought at all, but sensed as external phenomena—seen or heard, so to speak. Thought was essentially revelation, not invested but forced upon us or bringing conviction though its immediacy and actuality. Thinking of this kind precedes the primitive ego-consciousness, and the latter is more its object than its subject. But we ourselves have not yet climbed the last peak of consciousness, so we also have a pre-existent thinking, of which we are not aware so long as we are supported by traditional symbols — or, to put it in the language of dreams, so long as the father or the king is not dead.”

~ “The unconscious is commonly regarded as a sort of incapsulated fragment of our most personal and intimate life — something like what the Bible calls the ‘heart’ and considers the source of all evil thoughts. In the chambers of the heart dwell the wicked blood-spirits, swift anger and sensual weakness. This is how the unconscious looks when seen from the conscious side. But consciousness appears to be essentially an affair of the cerebrum, which sees everything separately and in isolation, and therefore sees the unconscious in this way too, regarding it outright as my unconscious. Hence it is generally believed that anyone who descends into the unconscious gets into a suffocating atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity, and in this blind alley is exposed to the attack of all the ferocious beasts which the caverns of the psychic underworld are supposed to harbour. True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face. This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious.”

~ “We believe in ego-consciousness and in what we call reality. The realities of a northern climate are somehow so convincing that we feel very much better off when we do not forget them. For us it makes sense to concern ourselves with reality. Our European ego-consciousness is therefore inclined to swallow up the unconscious, and if this should not prove feasible we try to suppress it. But if we understand anything of the unconscious, we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this life turns against us if suppressed, as happens in neurosis. Conscious and Unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must contend, let it be at least a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too — as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an ‘individual.’”

~ “The unconscious no sooner touches us than we are it — we become unconscious of ourselves. That is the age-old danger, instinctively known and feared by primitive man, who himself stands so very close to this pleroma. His consciousness is still uncertain, wobbling on its feet. It is still childish, having just emerged from the primal waters. A wave of the unconscious may easily roll over it, and then he forgets who he was and does things that are strange to him. Hence primitives are afraid of uncontrolled emotions, because consciousness breaks down under them and gives way to possession. All man’s strivings have therefore been directed towards the consolidation of consciousness. This was the purpose of rite and dogma; they were dams and walls to keep back the dangers of the unconscious, the ‘perils of the soul.’ Primitive rites consist accordingly in the exorcising of spirits, the lifting of spells, the averting of the evil omen, propitiation, purification, and the production of sympathetic magic of helpful occurrences.”