 his therapeutic practice, Jung found mandalas to have a 'magical' effect, reducing confusion in the psyche to order, and often affecting a person in ways that only became apparent later. They worked because the unconscious is allowed free reign; what has been swept under comes to the surface. Motifs such as egg shapes, a lotus flower, a star or sun, a snake, castles, cities, eyes, etc. are produced for no obvious reason, yet reflect or draw out processes that are going on deep below that person's conscious thinking. When a person became able to make a meaningful interpretation of the images, Jung observed that it was usually the beginning of psychological healing. It was one step taken in the individuation process.
We think we are modern and civilized with all our technology and knowledge, but inside, Jung says, we are still 'primitives'. He once observed in Switzerland a Strudel, a local witch-doctor, remove a spell from a stable – in the shadow of a railway line on which several trans-European expresses roared by.
Modernity does not do away with the need for us to attend to our unconscious minds. If we do neglect this side of us, the archetypes simply look for new forms of expression, in the process derailing our carefully made plans. Usually the unconscious supports our conscious decisions, but when a gap appears the archetypes are expressed in strange and powerful ways; we can be ambushed by lack of self-knowledge.
The universe of ancient symbols we once used for deciphering life's changes and larger meaning has been replaced by a science – psychology - that was never designed to understand the soul and cater to it. Writing of the scientific mindset in general, Jung wrote: “Heaven has become for us the cosmic space of the physicists...But 'the heart glows,' and a secret unrest gnaws at the roots of our being.” Modern man or woman lives with a spiritual emptiness that was once easily filled by religion or mythology. Only a new type of psychology that actually recognized the depth of the psyche would be able to quell this secret unrest.
When it seems you are helpless in the face of problems, it should be remembered that this deeper mind carries the totality of human experience, a vast store of objective wisdom and perfect solutions. It only has to be recognized and accessed.
“Whether he understands them or not, man must remain conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still a part of Nature and is connected with his own roots. A view of the world or a social order that cuts him off from the primordial images of life not only is no culture at all but, in increasing degree, is a prison or a stable.”
Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswil, Switzerland in 1875, the son of a Protestant minister.
In 1895 he enrolled at the University of Basel to study medicine, and when his father died the following year had to borrow money to remain a student. He began to specialize in psychiatry, and from 1900 worked at the Burghölzli clinic in Zurich under the pioneering psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. In 1903 he married Emma Rauschenbach, a wealthy Swiss heiress. Under Swiss law Jung had access to her fortune, and they built a large house in Kusnacht for their young family.
In 1905 Jung became lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Zurich, and in subsequent years developed a successful private practice. In 1912 he broke with Freud, and two years later resigned from the International Psychoanalytic Society. Freud had considered Jung his heir in psychoanalytical theory, so the split was a major event in the history of psychology. The split enabled Jung to branch out and explore concepts such as synchronicity, individuation and the theory of psychological types (see Isabel Briggs Myers).
Other books include The Psychology of the Unconscious (1911-12), Symbols of Transformation (1912),
Psychological Types (1921), Psychology and Religion (1937), Psychology and Alchemy(1944), and The Undiscovered Self (1957). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious is actually Part I of the ninth volume of Jung's Collected Works.
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