Carl Jung - Religious Belief as a Product of the Human Mind Flashcards
What are the 5 parts of the Psyche?
Persona, Ego, Self, Shadow, Anima/Animus
What is the shared collective unconscious?
Shared images from our primordial selves/ancestors traced back to an individuals own past experiences. Formed by our psyche undergoing evolution just like our bodies
How do Archetypes from our collective unconscious influence us?
influence our behaviour and emotions by producing religious symbols and imagery that is in all individuals
What is Neumann’s organic analogy?
The same way the body requires organs, our mind needs psychic organs for psychological functioning that have been developed through evolution
What are Archetypes?
We are born with a form of the world as a ‘virtual image’ residing in our collective unconscious that cannot be accessed but we are aware of them when seeing religious symbols. They are not images but are expressed through projections of the archetype.
What do the Archetypes communicate?
An aspect of the human psyche and unconscious that is ineffable, which helps us understand our archetypal structure
Where do Archetypes appear?
in dreams, religion, literature, all cultures and societies and generate images in response to our experiences.
What is the Persona?
Our mask consealing our true nature, not our real unconscious. Some overidentify with their persona and leads to repressed feelings
What is the Shadow?
The unnatractive and repressed we do not want to show. Jung states we must understand and recognize this part of ourselves
What is the Anima/Animus?
Anima is archetypal female image
Animus is archetypal male image
They are present in the opposing sex to become balanced and individuated
What is the Self?
The central archetype trying to unite all Archetypes, Jung believes representations of deities come from the self. They aren’t the exact same but the self is how religious ideas are mediated.
What is Individuation?
requiring us to recognize the true condition of our psyche or else have psychological issues. Our true feelings are often repressed by our moral codes. Individuation therefore is harmonization of all the archetypes
What does Jung mean by The God Within?
God image & self are the same, Religious images are reflections of the self and therefore God is a subjective inner reality
What was Jung’s study on Mrs Miller?
A Schizophrenic who had dreams she was a moth desiring light, Jung compared this with her desire for God
What does Jung mean by God is an archetype?
We are born with the tendency to generate religious images based on our own experiences
