Jung’s archetypal theory links the concept of the anima and animus, and the significance of dreams to the Hindu God-image of Shiva, where he is a personification of the Absolute in a universal and personal sense. This paradoxical, multi-faceted image serves as a grand metaphor for the realignment of the Self through a Jungian unveiling of one’s hidden, inner dynamics. "Gods are metaphors of archetypal behaviours and myths are archetypal enactments" (Samuels 27). The rebirth process is commonly bestowed within dreams because "the dream is the personal aspect of myth"(Transformations 163). Myths are Truth told in a different way through fiction, metaphor, and poetic language where the implications and suggestions go past the words, similarly to what happens in dreams. According to Joseph Campbell in Masks of Eternity the images of myth are reflections of the dormant death that lurks within humanity’s psyche due to cultures’ worldwide sharing the echo of archetypes from the collective unconscious. Jung views archetypes as an inner concept which relates the body and psyche, and instinct with image. "In psychological terms, Jung theorised the reality of a God-image as a unifying and transcendent symbol capable of drawing together heterogeneous psychic fragments or uniting polarized opposites...[it] points to a reality that transcends consciousness, is extraordinarily numinous, compels attention, attracts energy"(Samuels 61). “death… points to the profound archetypal process of transformation” (Hall 86) signifying either a drive or the happening of a “new life” “Dreams, and often outer life too, take on the flavour of a myth or a fairy tale. (Sharp 107) Personal/Self/Jung In Jungian psychology, Shiva completely represents the harmoni... ... middle of paper ... ...peace to the soul that experiences the relationship. (Bhaktivedanta 154) The face of Glory (Kirttunukha) is a special symbol of Shiva “protecting against both spiritual and physical disaster in the deepest darkest jungle of the world.” In mythic Image it tells of the legend of the “Face of Glory” where Shiva suggests to a monster that he should eat himself. The monster immediately began ”commencing with his feet and hands, continuing through his legs and arms, … ravenous and unable to stop, let his teeth go right on chopping through his belly, chest, and even his neck, until there is nothing but a face.”(Mythic Image 118) “No one who fails to worship you will ever obtain my grace.” (Mythic Image 188) In retrospect, the whole essence of Shiva is poetic for a constant rebirth and strives in order to attain a balance within one’s psyche, in order to obtain wholeness.
Consistent in literature throughout every era and culture, archetypes represent a recurring image, pattern, or motif mirroring a typical human experience. An idea developed by Carl Jung, archetypes in literature exist as representations reflecting vital perceptions of the human psyche expressing the manner in which individuals experience the world. Using Jung’s concept, writers of all epochs embeds archetypes in structures, characters, and images of their narratives. John Gardner, in his novel Grendel, integrates several of Jung’s archetypes into his epic tale derived from the early story Beowulf. Gardner associates Jung’s personas of the outcast, the shadow, and the mentor-pupil relationship through the identities of Grendel, the narrator of events, and the dragon.
What do the following words or phrases have in common: “the last departure,”, “final curtain,” “the end,” “darkness,” “eternal sleep”, “sweet release,” “afterlife,” and “passing over”? All, whether grim or optimistic, are synonymous with death. Death is a shared human experience. Regardless of age, gender, race, religion, health, wealth, or nationality, it is both an idea and an experience that every individual eventually must confront in the loss of others and finally face the reality of our own. Whether you first encounter it in the loss of a pet, a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a pop culture icon, or a valued community member, it can leave you feeling numb, empty, and shattered inside. But, the world keeps turning and life continues. The late Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers and of Pixar Animation Studios, in his 2005 speech to the graduating class at Stanford, acknowledged death’s great power by calling it “the single best invention of Life” and “Life’s great change agent.” How, in all its finality and accompanying sadness, can death be good? As a destination, what does it have to teach us about the journey?
Psychoanalyst Carl Jung suggested all humanity is innately programmed with a set of primordial images as a collective unconscious. These primordial images, which he called archetypes, are buried deep in the subconscious until a triggering event brings them to the forefront. Artists, writers, musicians and p...
"The Archetypes and the Collected Unconscious."The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. 2nd ed. Ed. Carl G. Jung. London: Routledge, 1990. 393-417.
Furthermore, Campbell explained such patterns by using Carl Jung's theory of the collective unconscious, which he was strongly influenced with. Psychological organs that developed through the evolution, is the idea Jung gave of archetypes (Jung 81). To him they are recurring patterns, images and ideas which all humans inherited in their unconsciousness (Volgar 23). In addition, Campbell described his theory as a reoccurring cycle of pattern consisting of three phases: Departure, Initiation and Return, which he calls The Monomyth (Campbell 28), a deep inner journey of transformation that every hero must go through in order to grow (Voytilla vii).
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who developed many theories concerning the unconscious mind. Jung’s theories state that the unconscious part of a human’s psyche has two different layers, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is unique to every individual; however, the collective unconscious “is inborn.” (Carl Jung, Four Archetypes, 3) The collective unconscious is present in everyone’s psyche, and it contains archetypes which are “those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration” (Jung, Archetypes, 5); they are templates of thought that have been inherited through the collective unconscious. Jung has defined many different archetypes such as the archetype of the mother, the archetype of the hero, the archetype of the shadow, etc. These Jungian archetypes are often projected by the collective unconscious onto others. If the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving is examined through a Jungian archetypal lens it is possible to discern different archetypes projected by the protagonist’s unconscious self to illustrate the effects of the collective unconscious on character and plot analysis.
John L McIntosh. (2003) . Handbook of Death and Dying. Volume 1: The Presence of Death. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference.
For Carl Jung, his view on religious experience was based on all experiences being a psychological phenomenon. He differed from James in his view that a personal or individual experience with a God was indistinguishable from a communication with one’s unconscious mind. He ...
Carl Jung wrote “The Archetype and the Collective Unconscious,” it defines unconsciousness as the first reactions and interactions a person endeavors. Several psychologist believe that the unconscious mind acts separately from our voluntary thinking, much is true based on the work of Sigmund Fraud with his id, ego, and super ego. Basically understanding the unconscious mind is key to determining what type of archetype a person may have or develop. Many social psychologist have also believed that the unconscious mind is unaware of it actions and that the unconscious part of our brain can be on something irrelevant to the conscious part of the mind. The unconscious mind can be seen through the understanding of Archetypes, which are universal thoughts or mental images that influence an individual 's feelings and actions. For example, if a person is expressing a female form they might have an anima due to the way they treat other people of the opposite sex. Anima’s generally either represent goddess like qualities or certain witch qualities that try to oppress the power of men. The female soul found in the anima can be seen as feminist when they refer to the rule of men and manpower. Effects of the anima can be use to explain several unconscious actions such surprize beatings. A man’s anima explains what he wants to see in a women and how he wants her to portray herself. However, when the
He begins by looking at the very common views of death that are held by most people in the world, and tells us that he will talk of death as the "unequivocal and permanent end to our existence" and look directly at the nature of death itself (1). The first view that
Jung's analytical psychology can be divided into two parts: theory and practice. The focus of this prose will be on the former, which pertains to the structure of the psyche and the laws of psychic processes and phenomena and includes his theories of archetypes and the unconscious (Jacobi, 1942; Jung, von Franz, 1964). His practice involved the inclusion of his theory in therapy and consisted of four methods: association method, symptom analysis, anamnestic analysis, and analysis of the unconscious (Jacobi, 1942). The goal of all four of these methods was to reveal the patient's unconscious to themselves as well as the therapist. Jung found that one of the easiest and most effective ways of revealing a patient's unconscious was through the actions of archetypes in the patient's dreams (Jacobi, 1942). However, Carl Jung's idea of archetypes was not an entirely original one. Literature suggests Plato’s Forms, Kant’s Categories, Schopenhauer’s Prototypes, as well as Greek mythology and symbolism heavily influenced Jung.
The great psychologist-philosopher Carl Jung was briefly a student of Freud. Because Jung felt that Freud's approach to psychoanalysis was by far too narrow, he broke off from his teachings, and made significant contributions to mythological criticism. Jung's greatest contribution was his theory of archetypes. His proposal of archetypes argues that there is one original pattern or model of all things of the same type. According to Jung, beneath the personal unconscious is a collective unconscious that is in the psychic inheritance of all humans. Jung thought of the collective unconscious as a sort of memory bank that stores images and ideas that humans have accumulated over the course of evolution.
Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared
In our society we think of death … “as if it were shameful and dirty. We see in it only horror; meaninglessness, useless struggle and suffering, an intolerable scandal” (xi). De Hennezel shows us how death is supposed to be seen as a passage to a better place, wherever you believe that place to be, and views the movement toward death as an intimate time, as the last moment of someone’s life. To be able to share this moment with someone is a gift, for you are experiencing all that that person has become, everything in their life has come down to this culminating moment. Many ...
Deep in the minds of human beings lies a vast ocean of emotions and experiences. The human mind is often misconstrued and simplified by those who possess one, but delving deeper into the mind and it’s processes you see a whole other world that is veiled beneath the surface. One of the most famous examples of the human mind is the image of an iceberg, what is on the surface is so minimal compared to the immense body that lies underneath. Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and believed in the idea of the unconscious and subconscious that help power who we are. Through psychoanalysis Freud began to reclaim the self as an individual and stressed the importance of the external world and it’s direct role with the internal realm of an individual. Although it was originally found to be a sort of therapy for those with mental illnesses, it has an interesting and analytical and philosophical view of the self, and through this spawned new beliefs in philosophy. Through the establishment of the id, superego, and ego, and the past’s affect on the shaping the present state of the self, psychoanalysis reclaims the self for an individual and is successful in doing so.