Editing Collective unconscious (section)

== Exploration ==
[[File:3more.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''Moře'' (''Sea''), {{ill|Eduard Tomek|cs}}, 1971]]
Jung believed that proof of the existence of a collective unconscious, and insight into its nature, could be gleaned primarily from [[dreams]] and from [[active imagination]], a waking exploration of fantasy.<ref>Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 9.I (1959), "The Concept of the Collective Unconscious" (1936), ¶100–101 (pp. 48–49).</ref>

Jung considered that 'the [[Shadow (psychology)|shadow]]' and the [[anima and animus]] differ from the other archetypes in the fact that their content is more directly related to the individual's personal situation'.<ref>Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos'' (1988) p. 150.</ref> These archetypes, a special focus of Jung's work, become autonomous personalities within an individual psyche. Jung encouraged direct conscious dialogue of the patients with these personalities within.<ref>Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos'' (1988) pp. 62–63. Discussing: Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 7 (1953), "The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1916/1934), ¶321–323 (pp. 199–201). "The psyche not being a unity, but a contradictory multiplicity of complexes, the dissociation required for our dialectics with the anima is not so terribly difficult. The art of it only consists in allowing our invisible opponent to make herself heard, in putting the mechanism of expression momentarily at her disposal, without being overcome by the distaste one naturally feels at playing such an apparently ludicrous game with oneself, or by doubts as to the genuineness of the voice of one's interlocutor."</ref> While the shadow usually personifies the personal unconscious, the anima or the [[Wise Old Man]] can act as representatives of the collective unconscious.<ref>Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 14 (1970), ''[[Mysterium Coniunctionis]]'' (1956), ¶128 (p. 106). "We know well enough that the unconscious appears personified: mostly it is the anima who in singular or plural form represents the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious is personified by the shadow. More rarely, the collective unconscious is personified as a Wise Old man."</ref>

Jung suggested that [[parapsychology]], [[alchemy]], and [[occult]] religious ideas could contribute  understanding of the collective unconscious.<ref>Claire Douglas, "The historical context of analytical psychology", in Young-Eisendrath & Dawson (eds.), ''Cambridge Companion to Jung'' (2008).</ref> Based on his interpretation of [[synchronicity]] and [[extra-sensory perception]], Jung argued that psychic activity transcended the [[brain]].<ref>Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos in the Thought of Carl Jung'' (1988) pp. 15–27. Quoting Jung, ''Collected Works'', Vol. 8 (1960), "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle" (1952), ¶947 (p. 505) : "We must completely give up the idea of the psyche's being somehow connected with the brain, and remember instead the 'meaningful' or 'intelligent' behavior of the lower organisms, which are without a brain. Here we find ourselves much closer to the formal factor [synchronicity] which, as I have said, has nothing to do with brain activity."</ref> In alchemy, Jung found that plain [[water]], or [[seawater]], corresponded to his concept of the collective unconscious.<ref>Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 14 (1970), ''[[Mysterium Coniunctionis]]'' (1956), ¶372 (p. 278). "For the alchemists it was wisdom and knowledge, truth and spirit, and its source was in the inner man, though its symbol was common water or sea-water. What they evidently had in mind was a ubiquitous and all-pervading essence, an ''[[anima mundi]]'' and the 'greatest treasure,' the innermost and most secret numinosum of man. There is probably no more suitable psychological concept for this than the collective unconscious, whose nucleus and ordering 'principle' is the self (the 'monad' of the alchemists and Gnostics)."</ref>

In humans, the psyche mediates between the primal force of the collective unconscious and the experience of consciousness or dream. Therefore, symbols may require interpretation before they can be understood as archetypes. Jung writes:

{{blockquote|We have only to disregard the dependence of dream language on environment and substitute "eagle" for "aeroplane," "dragon" for "automobile" or "train," "snake-bite" for "injection," and so forth, in order to arrive at the more universal and more fundamental language of mythology. This give us access to the primordial images that underlie all thinking and have a considerable influence even on our scientific ideas.<ref>''Collected Works'' vol. 11 (1958), "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass" (1954), ¶441 (p. 289). Discussed in Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos'' (1988) p. 58.</ref>}}

A single archetype can manifest in many different ways. Regarding the Mother archetype, Jung suggests that not only can it apply to mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, mothers-in-law, and mothers in mythology, but to various concepts, places, objects, and animals:

{{blockquote|Other symbols of the mother in a figurative sense appear in things representing the goal of our longing for redemption, such as Paradise, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem. Many things arousing devotion or feelings of awe, as for instance the Church, university, city or country, heaven, earth, the woods, the sea or any still waters, matter even, the underworld and the moon, can be mother-symbols. The archetype is often associated with things and places standing for fertility and fruitfulness: the cornucopia, a ploughed field, a garden. It can be attached to a rock, a cave, a tree, a spring, a deep well, or to various vessels such as the baptismal font, or to vessel-shaped flowers like the rose or the lotus. Because of the protection it implies, the magic circle or mandala can be a form of mother archetype. Hollow objects such as ovens or cooking vessels are associated with the mother archetype, and, of course, the uterus, ''[[yoni]]'', and anything of a like shape. Added to this list there are many animals, such as the cow, hare, and helpful animals in general.<ref>Jung, ''Collected Works'' vol. 9.I (1959), "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype" (1938/1954), ¶156 (p. 81).</ref> }}

Care must be taken, however, to determine the meaning of a symbol through further investigation; one cannot simply decode a dream by assuming these meanings are constant. Archetypal explanations work best when an already-known mythological narrative can clearly help to explain the confusing experience of an individual.<ref name="ShelburnePage58">Shelburne, ''Mythos and Logos'' (1988) p. 58. "what may appear objectively to be a symbol may upon closer examination prove to be a sign with a simple representational explanation. In order to verify the presence of an archetype, then, both the views of introspection and extraspection are necessary. The symbolic nature of the person's experience and his for the most part absence of personal association to the material is taken into account along with the presence of the same theme or motif in material drawn from the history of symbols. The ability of these historical parallels to provide an explanation of the meaning of otherwise inexplicable content is then the crucial factor justifying the employment of the archetypal hypothesis."</ref>