4. Symbolising Unconscious Thought--Jung

Welcome to Section 4 of Anthropology of Symbols. In Section 3, we looked at Freud's theory that symbols can express unconscious thoughts, fantasies, emotions etc. Freud himself is not considered an anthropologist, but many anthropologists drew inspiration from him.

This week, we analyze Jung's theory as applied to symbols. Jung differs from Freud in one major regard. Where Freud was concerned with the personal unconscious, for Jung, we share a collective unconscious. This collective unconscious is composed of archetypes. These archetypes can manifest as symbols. For an overview, please watch the following:

Archetypes and snowflakes

To start with, Jung's fundamental concept is "archetypes". Jung explains that archetypes live in the unconscious; they have no form in themselves but give shape to ideas, symbols etc. So you are born with an unconscious form in your mind, which manifests as 'mum', if you're born in England; or "maman" if you're born in France. These symbols emerge from that form

To understand this you could think of snowflakes. Every single snowflake is said to be unique. But they are based on the same ideal structure--a 5-sided shape, a hexagon. Where does this ideal hexagon exist? In water molecules themselves? In the secrets of the universe? Whatever it is that ideal hexagon determines the shape of every single snowflake. Similarly an ideal structure that all humans have gives shape to all symbols of 'mother' in every culture. This ideal structure, as I'm calling, is Jung's archetype.

Collective Unconscious & Archetypes

 All humans share these archetypes. They 'reside' in what he calls our "collective unconscious"

Whereas personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes. The concept of the archetype, which is an indispensable correlate of the idea of the collective unconscious, indicates the existence of definite forms in the psyche which seem to be present always and everywhere…. my idea of the archetype - literally a pre-existent form - does not stand alone but is something that is recognized and named in other fields of knowledge. My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.

Storr, a famous psychiatrist of my youth, explains that it's not your personal history, but the archetypes:

It was Jung's experience with psychotic patients which led him to postulate a "collective" unconscious. He found that delusions and hallucinations could seldom be explained in terms of the patient's personal history. Jung's extensive knowledge of comparative religion and mythology led him to detect parallels with psychotic material [. For Jung these parallels pointed to a] common source: a myth producing level of mind which was common to all men. [This was the collective unconscious]. Jung described the collective unconscious as consisting of... "archetypes". Archetypes are not inborn ideas, but "typical forms of behaviour which, once they become conscious, naturally present themselves as ideas and images".

These "ideas and images" we could call, for the purposes of this course, "symbols and myths". So lets say that symbols and myths are created out of archetypes--unconscious forms which all human share.


As anthropologists, we could interpret Jung as follows: all humans share these archetypes. However, the form they take differs according to place and time. The archetypes become concrete as symbols and myths, but in historically specific ways. This is why we see the same basic structure underlying myths and images in cultures located at opposite ends of the earth.

The Mother Archetype

Leonardo's St Anne

To learn Jung, we'll focus on just one of his archetypes; the mother archetype. This blogger does a good job of introducing the dual nature of the mother archetype. Then I want you to read "Introduction" and "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype". These are chapters in Jung's book Four Archetypes (From Vol. 9, Part 1 of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung). 

Jung takes on Freud

Aside from developing a sense of the pros and cons of each theorist, I want you to be able to distinguish between the approaches of various theorists we consider in this unit. Luckily for us Jung provides us an excellent example for differentiating his theory with that of Freud. This is because also analyses Leonardo's St Anne painting, but comes up with a very different analysis. 

First Jung states that the collective unconscious is shapeless forms in all of our minds:

The hypothesis of the collective unconscious is...to assume there are instincts... human activity is influenced...by instincts, quite apart from the rational motivations.... So...our imagination, perception, and thinking are likewise influenced by inborn and universally present formal elements... there remain enough individual instances showing the autochthonous [originating without outside causes; formed locally (NH)] revival of mythological motifs to put the matter beyond any reasonable doubt.

Then, Jung cuts to the chase: Freud says the painting is about Michelangelo's personal experiences that have become unconscious; but if it's so personal how come it's found in many different cultures?

Two mothers

...You have probably read Freud's discussion of a certain picture by Leonardo da Vinci: St. Anne with the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child. Freud interprets this remarkable picture in terms of the fact that Leonardo himself had two mothers. This causality is personal [according to Freud]. [But] this picture is far from unique, [and] St. Anne happens to be the grandmother of Christ and not, as required by Freud's interpretation, the mother... [Most importantly, the main point is that the painting contains] an impersonal motif well known to us from other fields. This is the motif of the dual mother; an archetype to be found in many variants in the field of mythology and comparative religion and forming the basis of numerous "representations collectives." I might mention, for instance, the motif of the dual descent; that is, descent from human and divine parents...

So the painting expresses a universal form, and archetype, which manifest in the idea that we are all born naturally, then 'born again' spiritually:

...Pharaoh was both human and divine by nature. In the birth chambers of the Egyptian temples Pharaoh's second, divine conception and birth is depicted on the walls; he is "twice-born." It is an idea that underlies all rebirth mysteries, Christianity included. Christ himself is "twiceborn": through his baptism in the Jordan he was regenerated and reborn from water and spirit....Thanks to this motif of the dual birth, children today, instead of having good and evil fairies who magically "adopt" them at birth with blessings or curses, are given sponsors-a "godfather" and a "godmother."

This can be found in infantile fantasies:

The idea of a second birth is found at all times and in all places....it is [for example] an infantile fantasy occurring in numberless children, large and small, who believe that their parents are not their real parents but merely foster-parents to whom they were handed over...

Not just Leonardo, but millions of other people also need to believe this

[Not] all the individuals who believe in a dual descent have in reality [, like Leonardo,] two mothers, or conversely that those few who shared Leonardo's fate have infected the rest of humanity with their complex. Rather...the universal occurrence of the dual-birth motif together with the fantasy of the two mothers answers an omnipresent [found everywhere (NH)] human need... If Leonardo da Vinci did in fact portray his two mothers in St. Anne and Mary which I doubt-he nonetheless was only expressing something which countless millions of people before and after him have believed.

 So all Leonardo was trying to say is that we have spiritual and natural self; he just painted two mothers to symbolize that:

[As Freud mentioned, Leonardo probably believed that] vultures are female only and [that they] conceive through the wind (Pneuma). ...pneuma still has the double meaning of wind and spirit. This fact...points...to Mary, who, a virgin by nature, conceived through the pneuma [Holy Spirit], like a vulture...All this is really an allusion to Mary and the rebirth motif. There is not a shadow of evidence that Leonardo meant anything else by his picture. Even if it is correct to assume that he identified himself with the Christ-child, he was in all probability representing the mythological dual-mother motif and by no means his own personal prehistory. And what about all the other artists who painted the same theme? Surely not all of them had two mothers?

Born physically and spiritually

And this has clinical implications. The neurotic who is deluded enough to believe he has two mothers is suffering because the shapeless form of a dual mother archetype activated strongly in him. Not because of any particular mother issues in his personal history.

Let us now transpose Leonardo's case to the field of the neuroses, and assume that a patient with a mother complex is suffering from the delusion that the cause of his neurosis lies in his having really had two mothers. The personal interpretation would have to admit that he is right-and yet it would be quite wrong. For in reality the cause of his neurosis would lie in the reactivation of the dual-mother archetype quite regardless of whether he had one mother or two mothers, because, as we have seen, this archetype functions individually and historically without any reference to the relatively rare occurrence of dual motherhood.

It might be helpful read this less-condensed version of the same passage from Jung I have made up.

Reflections on Week 4 

This week, we considered Jung's theory of a universal unconscious formed from archetypes. We analyzed the mother archetype. It's not often that you see intellectual giants sparring, but when Jung takes on Freud it's not only fascinating but hugely informative of the difference between these two theorists.

Basically, how does Jung differ from Freud? As we have seen, Jung agrees with Freud that symbols express unconscious thought. But unlike Freud, Jung was interested in what he called collective unconscious thought, not private or personal. The collective unconscious is something we all share. 

Why hasn't Jung been more influential in anthropology? Paradoxically, the ideas that made Jung popular seem to make academics skeptical. Jung has become popular as a kind of spiritual guru in association, I think, with two ideas. First is that all humans are mystically connected. Notwithstanding this popular conception, in our reading on the mother archetype, at least, he seemed non-committal on that proposition. Second is that the we all have our own spiritual journey to follow and the wisdom of myths from all around the world can guide us in this undertaking. This is an impression I also get when reading Jung, he seems to say that if we could just stick to the truth of these glorious myths we wouldn't have neuroses. Anthropologists might characterize these two 'Jungian' ideas as of redemptive, mystical, religious etc.. And perhaps because of this anthropologists have, rightly or wrongly, tended to avoid using Jung's theory in analyzing symbols. 

However, I have included the theory in the course for several reasons. Students tend to be familiar with Jung's ideas, so he provides a useful frame for situating the other theorists we consider. Also anthropologists might have been wrong to overlook Jung's theories. Finally, Jung's theory of a universal unconscious provides a useful springboard for the greatest universalist thinker in anthropology--Levi-Strauss. As we will see in Section 5, Levi-Strauss argues that universal unconscious structures are the basis of symbolism. But for now, the take home message? Jung sees symbols as expressing shared unconscious archetypes.