Archetypes and Jungian psychology: hidden patterns of the spirit

******

     "I have come across quite a few different ‘types’ within archetypes, which I have identified in the past, and, although these individuals carry the same blueprint within, they have chosen to express, or repress it, in different ways, coming to live in different rooms in the same castle, so to speak. Another way of understanding the distinctions is to think of ‘archetypes’ as letters in the alphabet, ‘types’ as fonts, and the alphabet as a whole, being the number of archetypes available in the cosmos, although I expect in the universal lexicon there are many more than a mere twenty-six.

     Examples of types and archetypes within my range of experience include: two men I know- one whom I grew up with, and one whom I met later in life- both who carried identical spirits which tended, among other things, to be what I would call ‘rebellious eccentrics’. One of them became a criminal, the other a truculent hermit, but these were merely expressions on the continuum of options which their spirit had available while operating in the earthly drama.

     As well, four women I have met all carried the exact same spirit within, which I can best describe as ‘free-thinking, earth wanderers’, and expressed their essence in different ways. The first had lived out the essential aspect of her nature when she was young and then attempted, as firmly as possible, to repress it and live a very conventional life. The second had done similarly early in life, and then had sort of hybridized her spirit to society, still being a free wanderer occasionally, but also using her disposition to modify certain business practices of the company in which she was working- making them more ‘earthy’, so to speak. The third woman had maintained the core of her essence, when I met her, and was very much a freethinking earth wanderer, despite having had two children. The last was more of a pure manifestation of the essence, flowing in life as a traveler and benevolent gypsy woman, so to speak. (Notice I used the word ‘pure’, and not ‘perfect’ here, for purity is what comes when all the dross is extracted from gold, whereas perfection comes when that gold is formed into the ideal of the craftsman. An individual with a ‘pure’ essence may be far from perfected.)"

read the entire excerpt: Carl Jung: Archetypes and Spiritual Patterns: Alchemy

Archetypes and Jungian psychology: hidden patterns of the spirit

excerpt by Jack Haas

*****