Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Article

What Jung Actually Said, and What This Is Not

Learn More
What Jung Actually Said, and What This Is Not

This scheme is regularly described as Jungian, and the description needs qualifying. C. G. Jung proposed that the collective unconscious contains archetypes, inherited structuring forms that shape the images produced by dreams, myth and religion; the ones he wrote about at length are the Shadow, the Anima and Animus, the Persona, the Self, and figures such as the Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Child and the Trickster. He did not propose a list of twelve, and he explicitly held that archetypes as such are unrepresentable forms whose number cannot be fixed, since they are known only through the indefinitely many images they produce. The twelve-archetype set is Pearson's construction, drawing on Jung and on Joseph Campbell but not derived from either, and its most widespread use is commercial: it reached its present ubiquity through marketing and brand strategy, where its four-quadrant map of consumer motivations is its main selling point.

Connections

Article On

Source Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition
Sources
Divinity Atlas Long-Form Articles, First Edition
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.