Deluxe Archetype Report (Sage)

181 Pages·2017·1.78 MB·English

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HE AGE

Let us begin at the beginning. Our subject is archetypes, as
defined and delineated by psychologist Carl Jung – but
what’s an archetype? Jung lived from 1875 to 1961, and the
roots of the word “archetype” are far, far older than that.

Plato (428 to 347 B.C.) developed the idea of archetypes in
his theory of forms, which held that, for every single thing
on earth, there was an idealized form towards which the
actual tended, but never reached. Archetype was first used
by Jung in 1919 and was put together from the ancient
Greek words “archon,” which means “first,” and “typos,”
which – in this sense – means “copy” or “type.” An
archetype, then, is a template; an original from which copies
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are made.

Jung adapted that idea slightly in Psychology and Religion,
published in 1937 to define archetypes as, “forms or images
of a collective nature which occur practically all over the
earth as constituents of myths and at the same time as
autochthonous individual products of unconscious origin."
Look at that word, “autochthonous.” It means indigenous –
native to the place. And that’s part of the problem with
Jung’s archetypes; he said things that are entirely sensible
and understandable, but to do it he used words that most
people need to look up in a dictionary.

The purpose of these papers is to explain Jung’s ideas about
archetypes, but to do it in a way that’s much easier to
understand. To start: Jung’s idea was that, just as each
individual has a subconscious, so there is a collective
subconscious which is shared by all of us – by everyone,
everywhere in the world.

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Jung defined twelve main archetypes; one of them was The
Sage, and that’s the one we’re going to discuss in this paper.
Before we get into that, though, there are some features of
archetypes that we need to go into.
Introduction to Individuation

Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961) is known for some amazing
contributions to the field of human psychology, including
coining the terms “introvert and extrovert,” explaining occult
phenomenon, and even writing what has been called the
“Holy Grail” of the Unconscious Mind. He has studied the
human being’s inner most emotional secrets, and the
collective’s ability to transcend material reality through the
study of kundalini yoga.

Jung has been given credit as the father of analytical
psychology and helped to develop the theory of the
“complex,” referring to the myriad of emotions we carry with
us most of our lives, that affect almost everything we do.

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Jung was a student of the famously known Sigmund Freud,
and upon their first meeting it was a bit of a ‘mind-meld,’ to
use Star Trek speak. The two great minds are said to have
talked for thirteen hours straight about topics ranging from
human sexuality to human psychosis, but they did not
always see eye to eye.
Acting out their own archetypal dance, the two men had a
bitter parting over both psychological theory, and it is
controversially said, Freud’s unrequited romantic feelings for
Jung.

Perhaps none of Jung’s contributions is more valuable than
his development of the concept of archetypes – mythical
characters within each of us that are representative of an
original pattern or ethos. These archetypes, from the Greek
word archein, meaning original, and typos, meaning model,
are the same heroes and villains we see in every movie, read
about in great novels, and relate so intimately with in our
own life challenges and triumphs.

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Jung’s archetypes were used to detail the full range of
subconscious urges within the human psyche – those
formative thoughts and actions which are held within the
collective human unconscious. Once we understand these
archetypes more thoroughly, we can gain many benefits.
Among these, we can:

• Understand our own subconscious programming so
that we can either accept it or change it
• Understand the underlying motivations of others
• Apply archetypal wisdom to challenges that arise in
our lives
• Use a deeper understanding of the archetype to
achieve goals that affect our relationships, finances,
professional achievement, physical health and
emotional well-being
• Understand how the subconscious mind works –
where archetypes are stored – so that we can bring
its ‘secret’ workings to the surface for inspection
• Better understand symbols that appear in our dreams
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to use in our waking reality
• Understand personal and shared memory
• Realize when we may be acting under false pretenses,
and bring our true motivations to the fore.
• Unearth the conflicts represented when one
archetype is struggling to win favor over another
archetype and the fears, personality traits, and
anxieties that this struggle usually creates in us

There are many archetypes, but twelve are described by
Jung to symbolize the most basic and common human
emotions. As you read about each of these archetypes, you
will notice that certain types will resonate with you more
than others, depending upon what you are currently
experiencing in your life. However, you likely will have either
experienced all twelve of these archetypes yourself at some
point in time, or at least observed them in those close to
you.

Because the archetype embodies images and patterns
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representative of a universal experience, they are stored
within each of our psyches. We can observe them in our
social systems, in our thoughts, in creative work done by
artists, musicians and writers, and even in our own dreams.

The archetype might be a motif you notice in mundane
experience, as well as in peak experiences and or challenges
that call for you to dig into your deepest strengths to make
it through. An archetype can also appear almost like an
instinct that guides you toward certain behaviors or ways of
experiencing life, without even thinking.

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In our dreams, we will likely experience the archetype in
primordial images that are just as poignant to the modern
man or woman as they were to primitive people, who
experienced these very same recurring images or patterns.

In brief, archetypes are the prototype of the human form.
We will see them everywhere because they are an ancient,
primitive building block of our egoic selves.

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Plato’s Influence

Jung did not coin the term archetype, though he did much
to bring its meaning to light. The word first appears in
European texts in 1545 in the form of the Latin word
archetypum, which comes from the Greek, archein, meaning
“principal” or “extreme.” This etymology can also be found
in words like “archenemy” and “archduke,” but all of them
signify a specific pattern for which other personas or
concepts are copied, emulated or modeled.

Jung also borrowed heavily from the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato, who believed that all things have ideal
forms, of which everything else is merely a shadow or copy.

To wit, the Platonic philosophy of the archetype is that pure
form which embodies the fundamental characteristic or
characteristics of something. This can be a collectively
inherited, unconscious idea, a pattern of thinking and
behaving, a recurring symbol or motif which appears in
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