Resolving Psychological Puzzles

Karl Jung was one of the early psychiatrists to cite myth, folklore, and legends as a reflection of our inner selves.   He argued that there were archetypes present in all of our imaginations, and that we were likely to fill our stories with them.

Archetypes are such inherent, instinctual and primordial images and symbols in all human beings, which often find an unconscious (or conscious) outer expression in religion, art, mythology, folk and fairy tales, astrology etc.   Jung began to use his archetype notion in 1919 in accordance with his view that the human soul-life and instinct-nature, in form of "unloaded images," may be traced back to humanity even on a common and archaic level.   An archetype is not the image in itself, but the unfilled pattern and the possibility to fill out a given pattern (form) with an imagelike content.  In "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious" (CW 9,1), Jung defined archetypes like
this:

"There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action. When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given archetype, that archetype becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its way against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of
pathological dimensions, that is to say, a neurosis."

Caption:  Cupid and Psyche

Astrology as an ancient science is a fine example of that kind of varied symbol language, which has developed around archetypical motives. Doctor Jung said that astrology, per se, represents a "summation of all the psychological knowledge of Antiquity. And astrology is, if well used, (quote) a splendid method that can lead to deeper self-knowledge and personal growth."  He possessed a profound astrological insight himself, and among other he wrote the book The Aion, which treats the Piscean Age, Christendom, and human evolution.

"We moderns are faced with the necessity
Of rediscovering the life of the spirit;
We must experience it anew for ourselves"

While it may seem that the difference between insisting that a Bear represents the Dipper, and that it represents an inner archetype of power and strength, is very small, it  is important to note how the means and ends of these scholars diverge.  Jung - plus Freud, Bettelheim, and Maria Von Frantz, who we will study as well - were researching with the goal of explaining, and perhaps improving, our inner lives and personalities.  This is a far cry from Krupp, who would hold that we may invent later versions of a story which reflect our inner conflicts, but that the origin of the tales was to clarify the objects of the heavens.

Caption:  The Egyptian lion goddess, Sekhmet, in the desert

The Lion Goddess, Sekhmet--herald of Leo Rising or symbol of unbearable heat?

Continue with Lecture IV.