The archetypes and the collective unconscious

 

The first thing that grabbed my attention when I picked up this book from the shelf was the term used in the title,” collective unconscious”

I’ve been thinking about people’s behavior in crowds, in groups and how different we can be compared to our individual self. Suddenly we say things we don’t really mean to; we act as if we are possessed or swayed by some unnatural force. Yup, you could deny this while reading this in your PJs but I refer you to the literally example of the book “1984”. Owle managed to describe this transformation so very well. And if you’re more comfortable with a real-life example, I refer u to second world war, Nazi formation and the parades of imprisoned people not very far from today and what’s worse is that this cycle keeps happening. I kept asking myself, what happens? What amplifies in our brains?? What makes people believe so strongly and confidently when the number goes up?? Why Religion never seems to disappear from human history but it only reshapes itself?

I didn’t hope to find an answer to these questions but I managed to find clues. This book talks about a process in which, how when we are positioned in groups our subconscious level rises up and our individual understanding dips and we are more vulnerable to acts we don’t really believe in.

You see, for me who has little background in psychology, trying to understand Jung’s work is not an easy task. You have no idea how many times I was about to give it up entirely. The reason could be how vague and unstructured he talks about the ideas in his head. It’s like he’s trying to show us something that is covered in mist and if u get too close or try to touch it, it evaporates entirely. I think he tries to evade certainty and probably loves an added layer of mystery. But to sum it all up, here is what I understood about it:

While every human being has his/her memories and his subconscious and patterns, there is also a deeper level of understanding wired in our brain. It’s how, we, humans have experienced the world around us since we walked the earth. This shared subconscious is called collective unconscious. No matter what color, what language and what age we have, we share this…as if all of humanity is only one person. And certain patterns that keeps renewing themselves and are the result of our ancestors experiences, are called “ The archetypes” It is what makes us, predictable. It is very beautiful, the way Jung keeps telling us about different legends, stories and religions, to show us that at the very heart of it, they are all the same.  He warns and worries about the snobbish intellectual human being of modern day. The one who thinks has grown too important for the stories, dismisses them as child play and prejudice. However, like it or not we all have this programmed brain, and beautiful intellectual human, u can not run from your heritage nor u can deny it. The more we try to suppress it, the more violent it becomes. Why??

Cause we push it down to the deepest and darkest part of our subconscious simply by denying it, feeding it power and after a while, it will start to control us and we will repeat the pattern. That could be why we have the phrase “history repeats itself”. As a matter of fact, we have so many stories about this too. In every culture, there is a big bad guy, and then comes a prophecy that one day he will lose power, so he does everything in his power to prevent this but his actions only help his doom and he will actually make sure that the prophecy will come true by his very own actions. ( I refer u to the story of Zahak and Fereydoun in Shahnameh)

So what are we to do?? Are we to oppose any change and believe in the old ways and spend our days worshiping trees, looking for holy ghosts? The answer is No.

Jung simply says that, know there is a part that you will not be able to change in your brain and instead of trying to, just listen…Listen to what it has to say. How it makes u feel. It won’t bite. Promise

No matter how outrageous it is…how stupid it might sound ( I found myself feeling like that more than once while reading the book)...It is what humans thought the world means when they couldn’t understand it or themselves. As the writer says, these archetypes belong to a time where writing didn’t exist, when different forms of thinking didn’t exist yet. You didn’t think about the process of your thinking but u could describe it with sounds and later in paintings.

I think at the very end, Jung asks us to pause, respect the old wisdom, their belief could easily be ours and instead of finding it stupid, try and find the human experience behind it. Listen .  Do not resist the things you don’t understand but sit with them. Another danger in our time is to try and find meaning and symbols for everything we see or read. I think we should be encouraged to be curious but not obsessed with finding meaning for it all, right this instant.

In my opinion the archetypes were how people tried to live with the uncertainty of the world. It’s a way of creating meaning where you don’t find any. It’s why to this day we have authors who write fantasy, and why so many of us love game of thrones. The key is to try to get acquainted with these old legends and relearn their language instead of eradicating them from our lives. We don’t have to believe in them but I think there is more than one consolation hidden in the depths of them. As if they feed a deep part, we don’t really know yet but just because we can not put it under a microscope, doesn’t mean it’s not there.   

In the end I want to send and encouragement to all Jung readers out there. I don’t fully understand his work. I might change my perspective in the future but the important thing is that we all try . So cheers to u all and happy reading!