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Scientists
have discovered only fairly recently that of all our mental activity,
only about 5% of it happens in the conscious mind. That means that a
whopping 95% of our mental activity takes place in the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind comprises mental processes that are
inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgements, feelings,
or behavior.
According to Freud (1915), the unconscious
mind is the primary source of human behavior. Like an iceberg, the most
significant part of the mind is the part you cannot see. But this is very
real electrical energy that can get blocked behind dams or walls
in the unconscious, usually caused by negativity such as pain, fear,
trauma, or other kinds of stress.
Medications can sometimes move these blockages
around but they may treat symptoms rather than the causes of
illness. And medications may only offer temporary relief, or
have bad side effects, and can be expensive.
The new biology of epigenetics is the study of cellular consciousness and the biochemical
mechanisms of emotions that switch genes on and off. Learning to use our
conscious mind to find and deal with our unconscious blockages is an
effective healing processes. But since we don't see into the unconscious directly, one way to do this is symbolically using archetypes.
The term "archetype" has its origins in ancient Greek. The root words
are archein, which means "original or old"; and typos, which means
"pattern, model or type". The combined meaning is an "original pattern"
of which all other similar persons, objects, or concepts are derived,
copied, modeled, or emulated.
Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.
They are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter
consciousness as images or manifest in behavior or interaction with the
outside world.
They are autonomous and hidden forms which are transformed once they
enter consciousness and are given particular expression by individuals
and their cultures.In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious.
The
existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by using story,
art, myths, religions, or dreams. So Jungian archetypes refer to
unclear underlying forms from which emerge images and motifs such as the mother, the child, the trickster,
among others. History, culture and personal context shape these
manifest representations, giving them their specific content.
These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images.
"There are many Jungian archetypes, as they are called. Jung seemed to have some main archetypes, which he describes in his book Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self. The archetypes include the Self,
which each individual might think is just their personality. However,
for Jung, the self is the unification of the conscious and unconscious
life of the individual. The self is created through a process called individuation,
in which all the aspects of the personality are integrated into a
unified whole. For Jung, the self as an archetype is best represented by
the mandala. The word mandala in Sanskrit means “circle” and
they are symbols which are significant in Hindu and Buddhist rituals and
spiritual practices, such as meditation. The psychologist David Fontana
remarks in his book, Meditating with Mandalas, that the
mandala’s symbolic nature can give an individual access to deeper levels
of their unconscious, which will ease the process of individuation."
....The mythologist Joseph Campbell, following in the
tradition of Jung, would become famous for looking at the different
myths, folklore, stories and religions from around the world and picking
out the fundamental, universal elements to them. In his highly
influential book The Hero With a Thousand Faces,
Campbell discusses the journey of the archetypal hero. According to
Campbell, all those famous stories involving heroes, such as the
labours of Hercules or the life of the Buddha, share a basic structure.
Campbell called this structure the monomyth and in short, it
involves a call to adventure, a road of trials, the boon (or
discovery), a return to the ordinary world and, finally, the
application of the boon. This structure is clever because Campbell is
able to apply it to history’s most famous stories, such as Homer’s The
Odyssey and the life of Christ as depicted in the Gospels.
Campbell
seems to justify Jung’s idea that archetypes are something that we can
easily identify with and which evoke a strong emotional response from us
because they symbolise our evolutionary experiences. The hero’s journey
represents the primitive struggle of our ancestors in entering an
unknown world of danger, but overcoming the danger and bringing back to
the tribe or group some discovery or treasure that will benefit
everyone." - Sam Wolfe
Explorations into both the vast universe, and the nature of the smallest
elementary particles that physicists study,
seems to leave us with more questions than answers. Apparently all
myths, epics and religions are linked in that they are cultural
manifestations of the universal need of the human psyche to explain
social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.
The collective
unconscious was the name that Jung gave to the wellspring of symbols
and archetypes from which we derive human narratives. Archetypes
represent fundamental human motifs of our experience and they evoke deep emotions which can serve to organize,
direct and inform human thought and behavior.
We often find that our feelings don't seem logical. Honoring your feelings
isn't a sign of weakness and it doesn't mean you're giving in to them.
Indeed, the process of acknowledging your feelings and working through
them will leave you feeling more confident and freer. True objectivity
can include intuition and emotional intelligence.
Over a 100 different archetypes can be distinguished, the most well known are the following basic archetypes:
- The Child archetype is young and innocent.
- The Self archetype shows the authentic self, the complete personality of someone when they have developed themselves.
- The Anima reflects the feminine part of the psyche, present both in men and women.
- The mother archetype is the protective, kind mother who possesses a lot of healing power, the mythological goddess.
- The maiden archetype is the pure and innocent young woman, like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
- The Queen archetype is the feminine soverign who can take charge of situations and set the good example.
- The Animus is the male part of the psyche,also present both in men and women.
- The youth archetype is the innocent young man who is sensitive and refined like Apollo and Peter Pan.
- The hero never loses and always has a solution. Think of mythological demigods and Superman.
- The trickster is untrustworthy and very sly. He carries out plans for personal gain.
- The wise old man or the philosopher knows a lot and supports others and teaches them.
- The King is the direct mediator between God and the people, serving as a conduit for the Divine, the exemplary spiritual father.
The
Persona is a social mask that people use to make a good or bad impression to
the outside world. Each archetype has a positive and negative aspect. The shadow archetype is the unconscious darker side of a personality
that a person represses. So a shadow king or queen become tyrannical,
the shadow child is a brat, etc. Examining both positive and negative
aspects makes for a well rounded understanding and helps us deal with
the fear of failure when setting goals.
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