The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Collected Works, Vol 9i)

by C.G. Jung

It is, in other words, identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us.

Primitive tribal lore is concerned with archetypes that have been modified in a special way.

have already been changed into conscious formulae taught according to tradition, generally in the form of esoteric teaching.

well-known expression of the archetypes is myth and fairytale.

designates only those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum of psychic experience.

The archetype is essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in which it happens to appear.

myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature of the soul

All the mythologized processes of nature,

are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of

the psyche which becomes accessible to man’s consciousness by way of projection—that is, mirrored in the events of nature.

What is true of primitive lore is true in even higher degree of the ruling world religions.

we are compelled to say that the more beautiful, the

more sublime, the more comprehensive the image that has evolved and been handed down by tradition, the further removed it is from individual experience.

the more familiar we are with them the more does constant

usage polish them smooth, so that what remains is only banal superficiality and meaningless paradox.

That people should succumb to these eternal images is entirely normal, in fact it is what these images are for. They are meant to attract, to convince, to fascinate, and to overpower. They are created out of the primal stuff of

revelation and reflect the ever-unique experience of divinity.

Dogma takes the place of the collective unconscious by formulating its contents on a grand scale.

The fact is that archetypal images are so packed with meaning in themselves that people never think of asking what they really do mean.

What is worse, the vacuum gets filled with absurd political and social ideas, which one and all are distinguished by their spiritual bleakness.