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A plant cut off from its roots must die — and Carl Jung believed the same is true of a person. This lecture from Academy of Ideas follows Jung into the depths of the psyche. It draws the map he spent a lifetime making: the small spotlight of consciousness, the personal unconscious of what we forget and repress, and the deeper collective unconscious we all inherit. There live the archetypes — universal patterns as innate as our organs, shaping every dream and myth. The task that runs through it all: make the unconscious conscious, or it will rule your life as fate.
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When a living organism is cut off from its roots, it loses a connection with the foundation
of its existence and must necessarily perish. Carl Jung dedicated his life to a single goal,
which as he notes in his autobiography, was to penetrate into the secret of the personality.
To accomplish this task, he adopted the dictum of the great Roman poet Terence as his intellectual
duty. Nothing human is alien to me. He probed the depths of the psyche like few before him
or few since, and what he came to realize was just how little we know about the nature of our own
psyche. Our times, he wrote, characterized as they are by an almost total disorientation in regard to
the ends of human existence, stand in need, above all else, of a vast amount of psychological
knowledge. In this video we explore some of what Jung learned about the inner world of the psyche
and examine the meaning behind his famous statement that we must strive to make the
unconscious conscious. Everything in the unconscious, wrote Jung, seeks outward
manifestation. And the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious conditions
and to experience itself as a whole. Psyche is a term that has been used to refer to many things,
from life to breath to soul to spirit. But Jung uses this term in a more modern way,
to refer to the mind in its most comprehensive sense. The psyche, in other words, is the inner
world of mental occurrences. And when Jung refers to something as psychic, what he means is that it
is experiential in nature. Jung divided the elements of the psyche into two main categories,
those that are conscious and those that are unconscious.
We may suppose that human personality consists of two things, he explains.
First, consciousness, and second, an indefinitely large hinterland of unconscious psyche.
The elements of the psyche that possess the quality of consciousness are those that we are aware of,
that are manipulable by acts of volition, can be reflected upon,
and connected to other conscious thoughts, ideas, or impressions to form webs of cognitive
associations. Unconscious elements of the psyche exist below the threshold of awareness,
are uncontrollable by the will, incapable of being reflected upon, or as Jung wrote,
I define the unconscious as the totality of all psychic phenomena that lack the quality
of consciousness. The boundary between consciousness and the unconscious is fluid
and ever-changing. There does not exist a realm that is conscious and a separate realm that is
unconscious. There exists a single realm of the psyche. To help us understand the difference
between consciousness and unconsciousness, we can use the analogy of a spotlight that moves
around a dark stage. The spotlight represents conscious awareness and the stage is the totality
of the psyche. When the spotlight illuminates certain mental contents or processes, they become
unconscious. When it moves away from them, they return to the dark state of the unconscious.
Or as Jung explains, From the scientific standpoint, unconsciousness
is simply a quality of certain psychic phenomena. One cannot even say that there is a definite
class of psychic phenomena which regularly and under all circumstances have the quality
of being unconscious. Anything may be, or become, unconscious. Anything you forget,
anything from which you divert your attention until it is forgotten, falls into the unconscious.
The vast majority of the psyche exists in a state of unconsciousness.
Consciousness, said Jung, no matter how extensive it may be, must always remain the smaller circle
within the greater circle of the unconscious, an island surrounded by the sea. Jung divided
the contents of the unconscious into two main categories, the personal unconscious and the
the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious consists of elements that are
a product of our individual history. It is composed of contents that could have been
conscious or that once were conscious, but which we have intentionally or unintentionally
relegated to an unconscious state. Some elements of the personal unconscious are events we have
simply forgotten about, or experiences that were not significant enough to register in
conscious awareness, while other elements of the personal unconscious were repressed from
consciousness due to their distressing nature or their incompatibility with our desired self-image.
Or as Jung explains, the personal unconscious contains everything forgotten or repressed or
otherwise subliminal that has been acquired by the individual consciously or unconsciously.
This material has an unmistakably personal stamp. The unconscious, however, is not solely a
depository of repressed, suppressed, or forgotten contents from our past. It also contains contents
that are innate, rather than personally acquired, and which are a product of the history of our
species, rather than of our personal history. Or as Jung writes,
This personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal
experience, and is not a personal acquisition, but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the
collective unconscious. I have chosen the term collective because this part of the unconscious
is not individual but universal. In contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes
of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals. Jung called
the contents of the collective unconscious the archetypes. The archetypes, he explains,
are universal and inherited patterns which, taken together, constitute the structure of the
unconscious. Each of us is born with a set of archetypes, just as we are born with a set of
bodily organs. And just as the organs predispose us to certain forms of physical interaction with
our environment, the archetypes predispose us to certain forms of mental interaction,
that is certain patterns of psychic experience, in the face of life’s challenges. The archetypes,
explains Jung, are the forms or riverbeds along which the current of psychic life has always
flowed. Jung often referred to the archetypes as the psychic equivalent to the instincts.
The instincts unconsciously pattern our physical response to stimuli, while the archetypes pattern
our psychological and emotional response. Or as Jung explains, the inborn mode of acting has long
been known as instinct. And for the inborn mode of psychic apprehension, I have proposed the term
archetype. Jung believed that for much of humanity’s history, we were primarily guided
by the unconsciousness of our instincts and archetypes. Consciousness, on the other hand,
is a relatively recent phenomenon and it was from the unconscious that consciousness arose.
Or as Jung writes, The psyche is not of today. Its ancestry goes back many millions of years.
Individual consciousness is only the flower and the fruit of a season, sprung from the
perennial rhizome beneath the earth. Or as he explains in volume 18 of his collected works,
The unconscious is the basis and precondition of all consciousness.
It is psychic life before, during, and after consciousness.
Why consciousness emerged from the unconscious is one of life’s great mysteries,
and much debate surrounds this question. But what is undeniable is that when it did emerge,
it dramatically changed the trajectory of our species.
Consciousness transformed us from an animal guided by the surety of instincts and
archetypes to a species that can doubt, question, and reflect. Or as Bernardo Kastrup writes in
Decoding Young, instinctual animals face no dilemmas or difficult choices. Instead, instinct
always provides them with one clear path forward. They don’t second-guess themselves, regret past
choices, or feel anxiety about future predicaments. By operating purely instinctually, they are at
one with nature and feel no inner tension. Only we, conscious human beings, do all those things.
For as Jung wrote, we have turned away from the certain guidance of instinct and are handed over
to fear. Consciousness is what makes us suffer. Or as Jung explains, man started from an unconscious
state and has ever striven for greater consciousness. The development of consciousness
is the burden, the suffering, and the blessing of mankind. While consciousness paves the way
for suffering, it also grants us immense power. Unconscious processes help us react to life and
survive in familiar environments. But consciousness helps us deal with the new, navigate unfamiliar
situations, and manipulate the world in novel ways. Consciousness allows us to think flexibly,
to focus on a single problem for an extended period of time, to anticipate future possibilities,
to plan, and to ruminate on past events. The power of consciousness, in other words,
has created an animal that can adapt to the world like no other.
Or as Jung notes,
The essence of conscious processes is adaptation.
But consciousness does more than magnify our ability to adapt to the conditions of the world.
It also shapes how we experience the world.
For we can, to a degree,
choose what occupies the spotlight of our awareness
and what we focus on sculpts our experiential world.
We can also deploy our conscious attention in a variety of ways.
We can focus it in a broad or narrow manner, or in an engaged or disengaged manner.
Different modes of consciousness, deployed to different objects in the inner or outer
world, create drastically different forms of experience.
Or as Ian McGilchrist wrote in The Matter with Things,
Attention is the manner in which our consciousness is disposed towards whatever else exists.
The choice we make of how we dispose our consciousness is the ultimate creative act.
it renders the world what it is. Or as Jung notes, the world itself becomes a reflection of the
psyche. In addition to rendering the world what it is, the psyche also renders our personality
what it is. How we dispose our consciousness, what we are conscious of, what we leave in the
darkness of the unconscious, and our ability, or lack thereof, to connect to the archetypes
of the collective unconscious are the prime factors that shape who we are. To change our
personality, therefore, Jung believed we must change our relationship with the unconscious.
For if we cognitively connect to, reflect on, and integrate into conscious awareness elements of
the unconscious, we broaden the scope of consciousness, change the manner in which
we dispose it, and move toward the ideal of psychological health, which Jung called wholeness.
The unconscious contents made an essential contribution to the completion of my personality,
wrote Jung in his autobiography.
The first step in tapping into the powers and potentialities of the unconscious
requires that we shine the light of awareness on elements of the personal unconscious,
specifically the ones we have repressed due to the belief that they were of a disagreeable nature.
These elements, which are often weaknesses and character flaws,
Jung called the shadow side of our personality.
The shadow is among the most accessible parts of the unconscious,
conscious, as its elements were at one time conscious.
For most people their personal shadow can be revealed through honest self-reflection
and a willingness to recognize that we are never as moral or virtuous as we like to believe.
Or as Jung wrote, With a little self-criticism, one can see through the shadow.
Very few people take the step of confronting the shadow and instead continue to deny their
flaws and weaknesses.
But denial of the shadow does not make our faults disappear.
allows them to operate outside of our control. It is, therefore, far better to accept our
weaknesses and faults, and in the process, temper their negative effects on our life.
Or as Jung explains, If one can accept one’s sin, one can live
with it. If one cannot accept it, one has to suffer the inevitable consequences.
Work with his psychiatry patients led Jung to recognize another benefit of confronting
the contents of the personal unconscious. Often we repress strengths of our character
that we were mistakenly led to believe were weaknesses due to a poor upbringing or corrupt
social values. Shining a light on the personal unconscious allows us to integrate these elements
back into our conscious sense of self, and in the process develop a greater personality.
The personal unconscious, explains Jung, is really something very relative, and its circle
can be restricted and become so much narrower that it touches zero. It is quite thinkable that a man
can develop his consciousness to such an extent that he can say, I am a man, I count nothing human
alien to me. A third reason for confronting the personal unconscious is that only after we descend
into this region of the psyche can we mine the deeper elements of the collective unconscious.
Or as Jung wrote, this personal unconscious must always be dealt with first, that is,
made conscious. Otherwise, the gateway to the collective unconscious cannot be opened.
Tapping into the collective unconscious grants us access to the deep wisdom of our species past.
Jung believed that innumerable archetypes exist that can guide us through the common
challenges that we face in our shared humanity. Some of the most common archetypes include the
archetype of the mother, father, youth, old age, and hero. Religious archetypes that can help us
connect to the divine, as well as what Jung called the archetype of the self, which facilitates
the attainment of psychological wholeness.
Although the changing situations of life must appear infinitely various to our way of thinking,
writes Jung, their possible number never exceeds certain natural limits.
They fall into more or less typical patterns that repeat themselves over and over again.
The archetypal structure of the unconscious corresponds to the average run of events.
When, therefore, a distressing situation arises, the corresponding archetype will be constellated
in the unconscious.
Its passing over into consciousness is felt as an illumination, a revelation, or a saving
idea.
Sometimes a pivotal stage in our development, such as standing on the precipice of a new
chapter in life, or the facing of a great challenge, will spontaneously constellate
the needed archetypes in the unconscious.
When this occurs, an individual is gripped by emotionally charged ideas and intense impulses
of attraction and aversion that guide him toward the aims of the archetype.
The problem, however, is that modern man’s mode of consciousness impedes the spontaneous
activation of the archetypes.
Whether it be our compulsive use of technology, which narrows our attentional field and blocks
out awareness of the contents emerging from the unconscious, our obsession with our self-image
and social validation which leaves the shadow blocking the door to the collective unconscious,
or the lack of participation in activities that can broaden conscious awareness, such
as art, religion, or time spent in nature, modern man is dangerously disconnected from
the collective unconscious.
This function of the unconscious becoming conscious works automatically, but, owing
to the notorious atrophy of instinct in civilized man, it is often too weak to swing his one-sided
orientation of consciousness in a new direction against the pressures of society. Therefore,
artificial aids have always been needed to bring the healing forces of the unconscious into play.
To connect to the unconscious modern man needs to strengthen the symbol-producing
function of the psyche, for it is through the manifestation of symbols, or what amount to
psychic images thrown up by the unconscious, that we become aware of the archetypes and when a group
of these symbols are constellated in consciousness, they point to the meaning and purpose of the
archetype. A term or image is symbolic, explains Jung, when it means more than it denotes or
expresses. It has a wider unconscious aspect, an aspect that can never be precisely defined
or fully explained. For example, Jung believed that the mandala symbol was generated by the
archetype of psychological wholeness and signified unity and totality. Often this symbol would
manifest during times of psychic chaos or confusion and help return order to a fragmented
psyche. Jung even noted that one of his patients, who was bordering on a psychosis, resorted
to spontaneously drawing mandalas and by externalizing in art an internal archetypal symbol, she
brought the symbol to conscious awareness and this helped return her to psychological
health. The symbols of an archetype, therefore, when
manifest in consciousness, act as an agent of self-transformation and sometimes the effect
of these symbols is so powerful they force us down a life path we would not have considered
prior to the constellation of the archetype.
Whenever the archetype clothes itself in suitable symbols, which is not always the case, it
seizes hold of the individual in a startling way, creating a condition amounting almost
to possession, the consequences of which may be incalculable.
One of the best aids for connecting to the collective unconscious is the dream.
When we dream, consciousness weakens and creates the ideal situation for the emergence of archetypal
symbols.
Most people, however, pay little attention to their dreams and quickly forget them soon
after waking up.
Jung advised that those who wish to connect to the unconscious should record their dreams,
reflect on their meaning, and attempt to decipher any symbols that may appear in them.
Or as Jung explains, I have spent more than half a century investigating natural symbols,
and I have come to the conclusion that dreams and their symbols are not stupid and meaningless.
On the contrary, dreams provide you with the most interesting information if only you take
the trouble to understand their symbols.
In addition to dreams, religious practices are another aid for tapping into the contents
of the collective unconscious.
Meditation, chants, hymns, and contemplative prayer are practices which help counteract
the narrowing of the attentional field that impedes the expression of archetypal symbols.
Religious rituals are collective experiences that can help activate the emergence of archetypes
into conscious awareness.
While reading holy scripture, mythology, fairy tales, or other great works of literature
grants us knowledge of how to interpret the symbolic contents of the archetypes.
If we tap into the archetypal realm of the unconscious, we will be transformed by the
act.
Our personality will develop toward the ideal of psychological wholeness, and we will move
through life with more spontaneity and ease as we will live in alignment with the deep
wisdom of our species’ history.
Touching the personal unconscious already changes you, wrote Jung, and touching the
collective unconscious changes you all the more.
You are a different being, and no longer like the people who have not touched it.
If, on the other hand, we continue to deny elements of the personal unconscious and remain
cut off from the symbols of the collective unconscious, we will remain a petty character,
small in psychological stature, and limited in what we can accomplish.
Furthermore, when a society is infected by a one-sided orientation of consciousness that
is so narrow and distracted that it shuns the wisdom of the archetypes, this paves the
way for social ruin. For the archetypes do not lie dormant when we fail to consciously
connect to them. Rather, they express themselves in destructive ways. They lead to heightened
emotional states that drive nations to war, to collective persecutions, and to the mass
psychogenic illnesses that wreak havoc on a society. Or as Jung warns,
If an archetype is not brought into reality consciously, there is no guarantee whatever
that it will be realized in its favorable form.
On the contrary, there is all the more danger of a destructive regression.
It seems as if the psyche were endowed with consciousness for the very purpose of preventing
such destructive possibilities from happening.
Learn from the greatest philosophers and psychologists of history to improve your mind, character
and life.
When you become an Academy of Ideas supporting member, you access over 90 videos exclusive
to members, packed with insights and ideas that have stood the test of time.
Become a member for $6 a month or $49 a year by visiting academyofideas.com slash members.
This channel is made possible by the support of our members.
Source: Academy of Ideas