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Evidence Supporting Collective Unconscious/Archetypes? Anybody?

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.mythology,sci.skeptic,alt.psychology.jung
From: nagasiva 
Subject: Re: Evidence Supporting Collective Unconscious/Archetypes? Anybody? (was Demonstrating)
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 10:10:33 GMT

theesage@azrmci.net (The_Sage) writes :

d00d! you need serious help on your side of the argument.
I'll try to help you out a little here by surfing the net
and looking for what other people think constitutes
evidence in support of the Collective Unconscious theory
(which I'm fast becoming convinced is a religious dogma!
part of Jungism and the Great World Transcendental Tour):


c'mon everybody it's surfin' Jungfari...


~From: ARCHETYPES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS - Chapter 1#       
      Section: THE CONCEPT OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS1
URL: http://www.geocities.com/nisgore/html/jungArchetypesch1.html

# 3. Method of Proof
# 
# ...We must now turn to the question of how the existence of
# archetypes can be proved. Since archetypes are supposed to
# produce certain psychic forms, we must discuss how and where one
# can get hold of the material demonstrating these forms. The main
# source, then, is dreams) which have the advantage of being
# involuntary, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche and
# are therefore pure products of nature not falsified by any
# conscious purpose. By questioning the individual one can
# ascertain which of the motifs appearing in the dream are known to
# him. From those which are unknown to him we must naturally
# exclude all motifs which might be known to him, as for
# instance-to revert to the case of Leonardo-the vulture symbol. We
# are not sure whether Leonardo took this symbol from Horapollo or
# not, although it would have been perfectly possible for an
# educated person of that time, because in those days artists were
# distinguished for their wide knowledge of the humanities.
# Therefore, although the bird motif is an archetype par
# excellence, its existence in Leonardo's fantasy would still prove
# nothing. Consequently, we must look for motifs which could not
# possibly be knovn to the dreamer arid yet behave functionally in
# his dream in such a manner as to coincide with the functioning of
# the archetype known from historical sources.
#
# Another source for the material we need is to be found in "active
# imagination." By this I mean a sequence of fantasies produced by
# deliberate concentration. I have found that the existence of
# unrealized, unconscious fantasies increases the frequency and
# intensity of dreams, and that when these fantasies are made
# conscious the dreams change their character and become weaker and
# less frequent. From this I have drawn the conclusion that dreams
# often contain fantasies which "want" to become conscious. The
# sources of dreams are often repressed instincts which have a
# natural tendency to influence the conscious mind. In cases of
# this sort, the patient is simply given the task of contemplating
# any one fragment of fantasy that seems significant to him-a
# third to the fifth year. Such material is available in profusion,       
# but it is valueless unless one can adduce convincing mythological       
# parallels. It does not, of course, suffice simply to connect a          
# dream about a snake with the mythological occurrence of snakes,         
# for who is to guarantee that the functional meaning of the snake        
# in the dream is the same as in the mythological setting? In order       
# to draw a valid parallel, it is necessary to know the functional]       
# meaning of the individual symbol, and then to find out whether          
# the apparently parallel mythological symbol has a similar context       
# and therefore the same functional meaning. Establishing such            
# facts not only requires lengthy and wearisome researches, but is        
# also an ungrateful subject for demonstration. As the symbols must       
# not be torn out of their context, one has to launch forth into          
# exhaustive descriptions, personal as well as symbological, and          
# this is practically impossible in the framework of a lecture. I         
# have repeatedly tried it at the risk of sending one half of my          
# audience to sleep....                                                      
dreams d00d. dream on.

and

~From: mythos                                                        
URL: http://www.openspaceworld.com/mythos.htm 

# ...There is of course some thought and evidence that mythos           
# actually begins much before the origin of any particular                
# organization in the collective unconscious of the species (Jung)        
# and that it first "sees the light of day" as an activity of the         
# right brain.(See Julian Jaynes, "The Origin of Consciousness in         
# the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", Houghton Mifflin, 1976.)          

d00d! you've apparently enlisted Jaynes to help you out!

and

~From: Neo-Freudians                                                 
URL: http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C12Personality/NeoFreud.html

# the collective unconscious aroused much controversy. Jung, 
# especially late in life, developed an interest in universal 
# symbols. He felt they could be used as evidence for the 
# existence of the collective unconscious. He described the 
# mandala as one of those symbols. Mandalas consist of a 
# combination of a circle and a cross. Jung did find mandalas 
# in cultures around the world, but simpler explanations, 
# such as development of children's progressive ability to 
# draw crossed lines and circles, may suffice to explain 
# their prevalence.                                    

first example: "mandala" -- alternative theory explained.

and interestingly

~From: Abstracts of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung                 
URL: http://www.cgjungpage.org/abvol8.html

# ...Evidence for          
# the existence of the collective unconscious is found in several         
# clinical cases; it is also reflected in the existence of several        
# religious beliefs, especially in early and medieval Christianity.       

beliefs, not diagrams, like...

~From: The Heart of History by William Van Dusen Wishard             
URL: http://www.cgjungpage.org/articles/wishardhist.html

# As Jung studied the history of the mind, he saw patterns that           
# appeared to be common to every culture ever known. As Anthony           
# Stevens points out in The Two Million-Year-Old Self, all human          
# communities, however "primitive," have always had laws about            
# property, rules governing courtship and marriage, rules of              
# etiquette prescribing forms of greetings and modes of address,          
# cooperative labor, gift-giving, the performance of funeral rites,       
# the recital of myths and legends, procedures for settling               
# disputes, taboos relating to food and incest, dream 
# interpretation, etc.                                                    
#
# Jung defined all such patterns of behavior as evidence of what he       
# termed "archetypes," or universal motifs stemming from the              
# collective unconscious.

so we can see what Jung thought was evidence. and better yet

~From: Symbolism.Org: Symbolism of Popular Culture: The Burning Mirror
URL: http://www.symbolism.org/writing/books/spc/burning/page3.html

# The territory of symbolism and the context of the world it              
# represents lays both before and behind us ready for modern              
# explorers to bring new tools and methods to its exploration. The        
# collective unconscious theory of Carl Jung held great promise as        
# a path towards this elusive context. But today, collective              
# unconscious is at the center of a revisioning attack on Jungian         
# psychology centering around the concept of hidden memory or             
# cryptomnesia. The attack is based on recent work by scholars such       
# as John Kerr and Richard Noll arguing that much of the key              
# evidence for the existence of the collective unconscious is taken       
# from work with psychotics and mediums during the early years of         
# the development of psychoanalysis. The images these patients            
# reported were from materials in the culture of the time they had        
# seen and forgotten rather than from ancient documents and myths         
# they could not possibably have seen.                                    

again the weak spot appears to be reliance on dreams. here is
clear reference to the Solar-Phallic Man hoax.
 
and

check out this guy (no evidence, but he calls Noll's observation
the low water mark on Jungian theories, pointing out specific
errors in Noll's expression):

	Cult Fictions                                                 
	URL: http://www.cgjungpage.org/articles/sonu1.html 

am I helping you out any, Sage? :>

Seyfert-1
 nagasiva@luckymojo.com

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