What are Archetypes and how do they influence
us?
Archetypes are the most potent patterns of
the collective unconscious, which powerfully
influence our lives and our destiny.
Let’s watch Carl Gustav Jung - the famous
psychiatrist who introduced the concept into
modern psychology - explaining it in his own words and find out what they are and how they influence us!
“It is quite certain that man is born with
a certain functioning, a certain way of functioning,
a certain pattern of behavior.
And that is expressed in the form of archetypal
images or archetypal forms.
For instance, the way in which a man should
behave is given by an archetype.
And therefore, you see, the primitives tell such stories, a great deal of education goes through story-telling.
For instance they call in a palaver of the
young men and two older men, and perform before
the eyes of the younger all the things they
should not do.
And then they say, "Now that's exactly the
thing you shall not do."
Another way is they tell them all of the things
they should not do, like the Decalogue, "Thou
shalt not," And that is always supported by
mythological tales.
For instance, our ancestors have done so and
so; and so you shall do or such and such a
hero has done so and so and that is your model.
For instance, take a teaching of Catholic
Church: there are several thousands of saints
and they show us how… you see …(The have
modelled them to become a different model
for each individual).
They are Models yes.
And they have their legends and that’s Christian
mythology.
In Greek, you know there was Theseus and there was Heracles, models of fine men, of gentlemen, you know.
And they teach us how to behave; they are
archetypes, archetypes of behavior.
Archetypes are models of behavior from the
collective unconscious.
You see, Oedipus gives you an excellent example
of behavior of an archetype.
It is a model of the whole situation.
That is just what I call an Archetype.
That is the first Archetype.
Ödipus gives you an example of the behaviour a Archetype
It is all the whole situation.
There is a mother, there is a father, there
is a son, there is a whole story of how such
a situation develops and to what it leads
finally.
And that is an archetype.
You see an archetype always is a sort of abbreviated
drama.
It begins in such and such a way and it extends
to such and such complication and it finds
a solution in such and such a way.
That is the usual form.
Archetypes come in different classes or combine
different Elements:
a) The archetypal pattern of behavior
For example, the Ödipus pattern of incestual attraction.
b) The archetypal persona who undergoes the pattern
In this case Ödipus.
c) The archetypal influences or personae which the original persona is most likely to face.
Such as his mother and his father and the sphinx representing the Threshold guardian on the path of self-knowledge.
It is no accident that Archetypes are described
in mythological terms;
Mythology is a pronouncing of a series of
images that formulate the life of archetypes.
So the statements of every religion, of many
poets, etc., are statements about the inner
mythological process, which is a necessity
because man is not complete if he is not conscious
of that aspect of things.
And so, you see, a man is not complete when
he lives in a world of statistical truth.
We need myths, without myth we as human beings
are incomplete.
In the same interview Professor Jung explains
that the structure of the Collective
Unconscious is a sort of agglomeration of dynamic archetypal images, which are not intellectually invented.
The Collective Unconscious brings forth Archetypes,
from which the individual myth arise.
In the next Video we will discover the Mandala
as the structure of the main archetype.
Or check out our upcoming videos about the
history of archetypes, about the Collective
Unconscious and about the influence on us as human beings, on our relationships and on many things more.
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See you soon!
