In understanding myths and religion cross-culturally, Carl Jung observed archetypal themes and entities. These themes and entities originated in the dreams and fantasies of individuals; however, their widespread occurrences suggest a link to the underlying connectedness of mankind. In this manner, Carl Jung establishes the collective 'dreams' of cultures and coins the term "Collective Unconscious" (Relke, 2007). The Collective Unconscious refers to instinct shared by all humanity (Collective) that manifests in universal images or concepts whose origin lies deep within the human psyche (Unconscious). Such images and concepts are known as archetypes and according to Jungian theory are core to understanding the stories shared in myths for they elucidate fundamental aspects of human psychology. In this manner the epic of Gilgamesh lends itself to analyses, particularly when surveying the representation of the anima.
According to Jung, the anima refers to the archetypal female in mythology and religion as an embodiment of profound female attributes located in the male's subconscious. Dr. Joan Relke, in his article "The Archetypal Female in Mythology and Religion: The Anima and the Mother of the Earth and Sky" states that the anima is many times represented as goddesses in myths. In this vein Siduri, and Ishtar may be viewed as the anima manifest within the myth of Gilgamesh; moreover, Gilgamesh's final acceptance of his mortality and the ineffability of the eternal may be viewed as a reflection of the individual's relationship with the Collective Unconscious.
When deconstructing myth in terms of archetypes it is important to consider that the psychological and psychoanalytical context underlying such an analyses is only one means of studying myth and does not exist without its critics. In "the structural study of myth" Claude Levi Strauss argues that shifting the focus of myth from an attempt to explain natural and cosmological forces to one rooted in psychology and sociology becomes "too easy"; for one can easily claim a gambit of psychological forces in explaining myths that cannot be verily disproved.
Discuss the Jungian theory of personality. Explain what he meant by the collective unconscious and archetypes. ... The substances of the collective unconscious are called archetypes. An archetype is defined as "universal, symbolic images that appear in myths, art, stories, and dreams which represent the collective unconscious." ... The anima is the female aspect present in the collective unconscious of men. ...
From the family constellations of Hellinger, we now move to the collective unconscious of Jung (McCarthy, 2002). ... From there, it was an easy step for Jung to create the unconscious archetypes (McCarthy, 2002). These archetypes are pretty much what the typical personality is, for example, the archetype of the Warrior is one in which the person is confrontational, violent, and wants to be a leader(McCarthy, 2002). ... Therefore, the collective unconscious is an evolutionary link with things that happened in the past (McCarthy, 2002). ... To listen to Jung, the collective unconscious is stat...
Central to Jungian psychology is the concept of individuation, referring to the psychological evolution of an individual over time. ... Jungian treatment requires us waking up to the unconscious dynamics creating our suffering. ... A painful looking into our self and upon our own shadow; a lonely separation from collective identity and the acceptance of a higher power within our self to which we must submit, it is not an easy task, and one that never ends. ... At the center of a complex is an Archetype or Archetypal image. Archetypes are universal pattern of motifs which come from the co...
"According to Jungian psychology the archetypes of the collective unconscious are manifested in similar mythological motifs which are universal-(Trachy and Hopkins 166). Jung defines a archetype in many ways. ... Archetypal images come from the collective unconscious and are the basic concepts of religions, mythologies, legends and Arts they emerge through dreams and visions they convey a sense of transpersonal power which transcend the ego. ... Not all the traits of the mother archetype are good. ... Though many of these archetypes are brought on by the unconscious mind, which is the portion ...
Jung believed that the unconsciousness was bigger than that. ... The psyche is not an individual, but it also has a collective dimension according to Jung. ... Archetypes of the Unconscious, of stages of ego development were created. ... The self, according to Jungians, can be experienced by the ego both as something inner or outer. ... As long as the world is different, so will everyone's self-archetype be. ...
He is said to have analysed over 80,000 dreams and he believed that dreams not only had content which related to individuals but stemmed from what he termed "collective unconscious". He called recurring dream characters such as the child, the mother or the wise old man "archetypes" claiming they were universal and symbolic images contained in the unconscious human mind. Subsequent scientific studies of dreaming do not support either Freudian or Jungian views of dream analysis but rather reveal that our dreams are more humdrum. ...
Frazer whose work, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, is cited in Jung's Psycology of the Unconscious (Rupprecht 1). ... He later added that "while the conscious representations of archetypes may vary from culture to culture, and individual to individual, the basic template remains the same" (Potts 4). While Jung succeeded in bringing the archetypal theory into the collective eye of academia, it was Northrop Frye, a Princeton professor, who showed the value of the archetypal theory in the more specific area literary criticism with his work Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays...
The surrealism movement was a major influence upon Pollock due to the fact that ideas about the relevance of the unconscious to artistic creativity coincided with his own experience. ... As part of treatment for alcoholism, Pollock underwent psychoanalysis; his therapists, who followed the teachings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, encouraged him to analyse his drawings for clues to his unconscious mental processes. Surrealist artists had also hoped to tap into the unconscious through automatism, a technique in which the artist's hand wanders across the painting's surface with...
