Excerpt from Personality and Personal Growth
My comments/thoughts are shown within black bordered captions

The archetype is probably Jung's most difficult concept. Archetypes are inherited predispositions to respond to the world in certain ways. They are primordial images, representations of the instinctual energies of the collective unconscious. They come from “ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious”

Archetypes are found within dreams, and are found within life itself. Finding new archetypes is a matter of searching deep within one's self to discover them. The origins of the archetypal hypothesis date back as far as Plato. Plato's ideas were pure mental forms, that were imprinted in the soul before it was born into the world. They were collective in the sense that they embodied the fundamental characteristics of a thing rather than its specific peculiarities.

Jung postulated the idea of archetypes from the experiences his patients reported. A number of Jung's patients described dreams and fantasies that included remarkable ideas and images whose content could not be traced to the individual's past experience. Jung suggested that there is a level of imagery in the unconscious common to everyone. Jung also discovered a close correspondence between patients' dream contents and the mythical and religious themes found in many widely scattered cultures.

Inherent imagery would explain the similarities in Egypt's and Mayan pyramids as well as other South American/world cultures. Thousands of miles and centuries apart with no contact between cultures. The images that prompted the similarities are within all human psyche. No UFOs or alien world influence.

According to Jung, the archetypes are structure-forming elements within the unconscious. These elements give rise to the archetypal images that dominate both individual fantasy life and the mythologies of an entire culture. The archetypes exhibit "a kind of readiness to produce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas" (1917, p. 69). They tend to appear as certain patterns-as recurring situations and figures. Archetypal situations include the hero's quest, the night-sea journey, and the battle for deliverance from the mother. Archetypal figures include the divine child, the double, the old sage, and the primordial mother.

Each of the major structures of the personality is also an archetype. These structures include the ego, the persona, the shadow, the anima (in men), the animus (in women), and the self.

The archetypes themselves are forms, without content of their own, that serve to organize or channel psychological material. They are somewhat like dry stream beds whose shape determines the characteristics of a river once water begins flowing through them. The archetypes are carriers of energy {emotional energies}. When an archetype is activated, it generally unlocks a tremendous amount of energy. All creativity has an archetypal element.

In his Hero with a Thousand Faces ( 1949), Joseph Campbell, a Jungian scholar, outlines the basic archetypal themes and patterns in the stories and legends of heroes found in cultures throughout history. Several excellent studies have articulated aspects of the heroic archetype into orphan, warrior, sage, fool (Pearson, 1989, 1991) and also into king, warrior, magician, and lover (Moore & Gillette, 1990). The story of Oedipus is a good illustration of an archetypal situation that deals with a son's deep love for his mother and conflict with his father. The same basic structure can be found as a theme in many myths and legends and also as a psychological pattern in many individuals. There are numerous other related situations, such as a daughter's relationship to her parents, parents' relationship to children, relationships between men and women, brothers and sisters, and so forth.

I tend to look at archetypes in dreams as emotional patterns of the dreamer. The person will fall within the definition of the archetypal images within the dream, sharing conflicts from the personal life with those of the archetypal image. It is important to discern the theme within the dream and by doing so the basic structure of the dreamer's psyche, and personality, are revealed. This is true not only in the basic Jungian archetype's but also the personal archetypal tendencies of a society

It is important to remember that only the contents of an archetype can enter consciousness. The archetype itself is a pattern that channels our psychic energies. We can never become fully conscious of this underlying pattern, just as we can study thousands of snowflake crystals but can never actually see the underlying pattern that generates their common crystalline structure.

I do believe we can become consciously aware of personal archetypes, or controlling agents, the unconscious energies that govern a person's actions as well as the underlying influences from which they flow {childhood experiences/influences being a prime factor}

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 61 Murfreesboro, Tn

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