Archetypes of Destruction and Reconstruction
Jung's theory of archetypes is linked to what he calls archaic thinking, which he contrasts with directed thinking, requiring conscious will and effort. Archaic thinking arises spontaneously in us (whenever directed thinking is suspended) in the form of dreams and fantasies, and is particularly vivid (and destructive) in visions and the delusions of the insane. Such unconscious products may make no sense at all to the person who has them, but they have a meaning nevertheless which can be elucidated through comparative methods. Archetypal images, ideas and mythical figures (personifications) form the structural elements of the collective unconscious - collective because they occur everywhere and throughout recorded history.
Archetypal images are both destructive and healing. The dissolution of ego-structure, the removal of the mask, paves the way for the breakthrough of archetypal images of reconstruction. To quote from Jung's Psychotherapists or the Clergy:
- "The opening up of the unconscious always means the out break of intense spiritual suffering; it is as when a flourishing civilization is abandoned to invading hoards of barbarians, or when fertile fields are exposed by the bursting of a dam to a raging torrent. The World War was such an invasion which showed, as nothing else could, how thin are the walls which separate a well-ordered world from lurking chaos. But it is the same with the individual and his rationally ordered world. Seeking revenge for the violence his reason has done to her, outraged Nature only awaits the moment when the partition falls so as to overwhelm the conscious life with destruction. Man has been aware of this danger to the psyche since the earliest times, even in the most primitive stages of culture. It was to arm himself against this threat and to heal the damage done that he developed religious and magical practices. This is why the medicine-man is also the priest; he is the saviour of the soul as well as of the body, and religions are systems of healing for psychic illness. This is especially true of the two greatest religions of humanity, Christianity and Buddhism. Man is never helped in his suffering by what he thinks of for himself; only supra human, revealed truth lifts him out of his distress.
...Since, as a rule, every concept and every point of view handed down from the past proves futile, we must first tread with the patient the path of his illness - the path of this mistake that sharpens his conflict and increases his loneliness till it becomes unbearable - hoping that from the psychic depths which cast up the powers of destruction the rescuing forces will also come.
It is as though, at the climax of the illness, the destructive powers were converted into healing forces. This is brought about by the archetypes awakening to independent life and taking over the guidance of the psychic personality, thus supplanting the ego with its futile willing and striving...To the patient it is nothing less than a revelation when something altogether strange rises up to confront him from the hidden depths of the psyche - something that is not his ego and is therefore beyond the reach of his personal will. He has regained access to the sources of psychic life, and this marks the beginning of the cure.
Such experiences reward the sufferer for the pains of the labyrinthine way. From now on a light shines through the confusion; more, he can accept the conflict within him and so come to resolve the morbid split in his nature on a higher level."
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Published by New Alchemy © MM
Philip Williams (1997) (phil.williams@new-alchemy.net)
