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Monday, February 14, 2022

Jung's Collective Unconscious - Examples

According to Carl Jung, the collective unconscious is the structure that has the most impact on our personality, it includes all the treasure trove of experiences that have accumulated over generations of human race existence, and have remained as traces of memory in the human Psyche. These traces of memory from the ancient past are inherited, and are ingrained in man as innate tendencies to respond or behave in a certain way, depending on the culture and heritage in which he was born. Jung believed that just as physical traits are inherited, so certain structures in the human brain are inherited, and these structures are a prerequisite for guiding thoughts, images, and ways of coping with life experiences. 

Thus it can be said, for example, that experiences related to seeing the sun as a source of life and growth created in man an archetype of a higher being, and experiences that were related to vast forces of nature such as volcanic activity, earthquakes and water waves created in humanity an archetype of energy. Jung gives the example of (what he sees as) motherhood, according to which women are programmed for typical maternal behavior towards their children such as breastfeeding and breastfeeding, without having learned it. Another example he gives is the equal images in all the religions that exist, in all parts of the world, regarding a universal magical power on which everything revolves 


Jung's archetypes are important for his collective unconscious, being a superhuman essence that does not originate in the world of the senses, which exists separately from the world and can be directly known through thought. Unlike Plato, who argued that one can approach the world of forms only through meditation, thought and transcendence, Jung believed that archetypes appear spontaneously in thought in times of crisis, and constitute a door through which one can truly observe the superhuman. Jung believed, for example, that mythology is based on stories about archetypes and is a repository of wondrous truths hidden deep in the soul of every human being.

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