ARCHETYPES

ARCHETYPES . The English word archetype derives from a Greek word that is prominent in the writings of religious thinkers during the Hellenistic period. In modern times, the term has been used to refer to fundamental structures in the human psyche as well as in religious life. In either sense, an archetype is a pattern that determines human experience (whether on a conscious or an unconscious level) and makes itself felt as something both vital and holy.

The Meaning of Archetype

The Greek compound derives from the combined meaning of two words, tupos and archē, both of which have double referents. Tupos refers both to a physical blow and to the concrete manifestation of its impact. Hence, the seal and its imprint are both tupoi. Further, the relation between any form and its derivative forms is indicated by this term. For example, the cast that molds the statue and the statue itself are both tupoi, as is the mold that is placed around a fruit by a grower in order to shape it as it grows. Internal and invisible molding is also a kind of tupos as in biological generation: the child is the tupos of its parent. Finally, as in the English cognate, type, tupos comes to signify any character or nature that is shared by numerous, related phenomena with the result that they appear to have been cast from the same mold: for example, the eucalyptus is a type of tree.

The nominal prefix archē refers to what is first or original, both in a temporal and in an ontological sense. As such, it may indicate equally the heavenly powers that govern the cosmos, the ruler of a realm, or the vital organs that empower life in the body.

Together, these two Greek words make up to archētupon, or "the archetype," a term that was not so commonly used as either of its components but that does appear with some frequency in the rather esoteric writings of certain Hellenistic religious philosophers. Already in De opificio mundi (1.69), the Jewish theologian Philo Judaeus refers to the archetype as the imago dei ("god-image") residing in and molding humanity in the likeness of God.

Later, Irenaeus uses the term when, in his lengthy treatise attacking the so-called Christian heretics (Against Heresies 2.7.5), he recounts a Valentinian version of the cosmogony. According to the Valentinians, a group of gnostic Christians, the world was not created by God out of nothing, but rather it was the fabrication of a demiurge, who copied directly or indirectly (depending on the version) an archetypal world (the Pleroma) that existed outside himself. In this view, the Demiurge creates in the manner of a mechanic who builds a robot that simulates, but does not replicate, a living model.

A third use of to archētupon during the Hellenistic period is found in the writings of the Platonic mystic Plotinus. He intuited a divine realm of which the creation was a mere reflection. Plotinus reminds his reader to observe the regularity and order exhibited by the natural world. This harmonious state of affairs, he claims, depends on a higher reality for its laws of being. The phenomenological realm does not truly exist, according to Plotinus, but appears at the boundaries between true being, that is, the One, and the void external to it. Plotinus's cosmogony thus presents a third use of the imagery associated with the term archetype. At work here is neither Philo's idea of an inner force (inspiration) nor the Valentinian concept of the craftsman basing his creation on a model (imitation), but rather the metaphor of reflection that depicts an emptiness upon which is cast—as if upon a mirror—the form of a divine but transcendent reality.

For all three philosophers, the word archetupon is used to depict a cosmogonic principle. Common to all three belief systems is the conviction that the creation of the cosmos, including the creation of man, depends on the preexistence of a transcendental reality.

During the twentieth century, the word archetype has been rehabilitated by the historian of religions Mircea Eliade and the depth psychologist C. G. Jung. Eliade, in his study of the religions of humankind, uses the term to name the sacred paradigms that are expressed in myth and articulated in ritual. For Jung, the concept of the archetype can also be applied to the dynamic structures of the unconscious that determine individual patterns of experience and behavior.

Eliade's Understanding of the Archetypes

In his preface to the 1959 edition of Cosmos and History, Eliade explains that, for him, the terms exemplary model, paradigm, and archetype are synonymous. For the member of tribal and traditional cultures, the archetypes provide the models of his institutions and the norms of his various categories of behavior. They constitute a sacred reality that was revealed to humankind at the beginning of time. Consequently, the archetypal patterns are regarded as having a supernatural or transcendent origin.

The sacred and the profane

These observations provide the basis for Eliade's description of the way in which a religious person distinguishes two separate modes of being in the world: the sacred and the profane. The member of a tribal or traditional society may be called homo religiosus ("religious human") precisely because he or she perceives both a transcendent model (or archetype) and a mundane reality that is capable of being molded to correspond to the transcendent model. Furthermore, he or she experiences the transcendent model as holy, that is, as manifesting absolute power and value. In fact, it is the sacred quality of the archetype that compels him to orient his life around it. Finally, the sacred is recognized as such because it appears to humans within the profane setting of everyday events. This is the hierophany ("appearance of the sacred"), that is, when the supernatural makes itself felt in all its numinosity in contrast to the natural order.

The hierophany

The appearance of the sacred may take on any form. It may be perceptible by way of the senses: God in the form of a white buffalo or in the magnificence of a roaring waterfall. The sacred may appear to humans by way of a dream, as in Jacob's dream of the angels of the Lord descending and ascending upon the ladder between heaven and earth (Gn. 28:12). Or the hierophany may be envisioned by way of the imagination, as, for example, the visions of Muḥammad, Black Elk, and Teresa of Ávila. The sacred reality makes itself known to the consciousness of humans by whatever means are available to it.

Orientation

The consequence of an encounter with the sacred, states Eliade, is the desire to remain in relation to it, to orient one's life around it in order to be filled continually with the sense of being and meaning that it evokes. In this sense, the hierophany creates a new order of things. No longer do space and time make up a homogeneous continuum; one moment, or one place, has become touched by the sacred, and from that time on, it will provide a means of connecting the two realms, a center that mediates sacred and profane experience.

This connection may be strengthened in many ways. Jacob set up an altar in the place where he had the dream. Religious people may build their homes, villages, or cities on a sacred site. They may practice a way of life revealed to them by means of a hierophany. Any action may become sacred if it is enacted in imitation of the way the gods have acted. Human life itself becomes assimilated to the sacred paradigm and becomes sanctified insofar as it shares in the numinous quality of the timeless archetype.

A modern example of an orientation governed by an archetype is the ritual Eucharist. In the Mass, the Christian repeats a series of actions that were performed in illo tempore, that is, for the Christian, in the beginning of a new age, at a time when God in the person of Christ still walked the earth. By reenacting the last supper, the Christian re-creates that sacred time and shares in its sanctity.

The spirituality that is inherent in this form of religion is not otherworldly. The people do not seek to escape this world for another (celestial or unknown) world. Instead, their actions are directed at making profane existence over into a replica of the archetypal world that has been revealed to them. They seek to realize paradise on earth. For homo religiosus, the limits inherent in temporal existence (decay, impermanence, and death) are transcended by imitating and incarnating the eternal patterns. In this way, they abolish time. Guided by the archetype, they experience the greatest freedom of their nature: they become like one of the gods.

Value of the history of religions

Modern humans may regard themselves as free precisely because they no longer seek to emulate a divine paradigm and see themselves, instead, as an unconditioned agent of history (unbound to external models). This is, of course, the inheritance of the Enlightenment, according to which progress is possible only after detachment from the so-called superstitions of the past in order to follow the dictates of a pure reason. In Eliade's view, one may be fully secularized, yet still be the product of a religious inheritance. Self-understanding requires an examination of that inheritance. Eliade suggests, further, that knowledge and the understanding of the religions of one's ancestors can be a source of meaning and value.

In addition, the archetypal themes that influenced our ancestors are still alive for modern people, both consciously and unconsciously. For instance, the difficulties of life can be regarded as obstacles to fulfillment or, interpreted against the archetypal theme of initiation, aspects of an ordeal that may lead to growth and, ultimately, transformation. Exile from one's homeland can be a source of bitterness and regret, or, viewed in light of mythical paradigm, the path of the hero such as Parzival, Odysseus, or even Moses, to name a few for whom the journey brought with it rewards unobtainable to those who remained at home.

Furthermore, in Eliade's view, the archetypal patterns linger on in the unconscious of modern individuals, serving as themes that motivate and guide them. On a collective level, the search for eternal life seems to underlie much of the science of modern medicine. On the individual level, the person may play out an unconsciously motivated role that has a recognizable mythical form: the hero, the sacred marriage, the wise old woman, the eternal child. The paradigms appear in numerous constellations with varied force at different times, even during the life of the individual. The insight that governs homo religiosus, an insight that Eliade elucidates, is this: There is a difference between the possession of happiness or wealth or power or success, on the one hand, and the realization in one's own life of an archetypal pattern. For the religious person, salvation can never be possessed but must always be embodied.

The Meaning of Archetype in Jung's Psychology

Many people have pointed out the difficulty of presenting a systematic analysis of C. G. Jung's theory of archetypes. This is perhaps a direct result of his method: As a physician, Jung discovered the existence of the archetypal reality through an examination of the subjective experiences of his patients and himself. Therefore, his theory was constantly growing in response to his clinical work. His contribution to a general theory of archetypes lies along the same lines of Philo's thought; like Philo, Jung emphasizes the presence of divine images within humans, directing and influencing human development.

At the Eranos seminars in Ascona, Jung and Eliade were able to discuss and compare their ideas on archetypes. As a psychologist knowledgeable in the study of religion, Jung knew and accepted the concepts of Eliade—archetype as transcendent model, the nature of hierophany, and so forth—but, in addition, for Jung, the archetype was also active in determining the inner life of humans in both its spiritual and material dimensions.

Instinct

The archetype is most concretely viewed as instinct. Jung states that the archetype

is not meant to denote an inherited idea, but rather an inherited mode of psychic functioning, corresponding to the inborn way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest, a certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other words, it is a pattern of behavior. This aspect of the archetype is the biological one. (quoted in Jacobi, 1959, p. 43)

However, the instinctual life of the body is unconscious. It is felt indirectly through drives and compulsions as well as through images that arise spontaneously in dreams and fantasy. It is the imagination that serves to mediate the subjective experience of instinct to the ego. Instinct clothes itself in images taken from everyday experience. The archetypal nature of instinct appears in the numinous quality of many of these images, that is, they have the power to compel one abso-lutely.

This is not to suggest that, for Jung, the archetype is nothing but instinct. On the contrary, it is the transcendent model that is recognized as having a directive force in the lives of individual persons even on the biological level. In fact, Jung suggests that instinct and spirit are simply two different names for the same reality seen from opposing perspectives. What looks like instinct to the outsider is experienced as spirit on the subjective level of inner life. The appearance of the archetypal pattern at different levels of human experience in varying forms is described as pro-jection.

Projection

Employing Eliade's term, Jung might say that the hierophany, or appearance, of the archetype may take place anywhere, even within the unconscious life of the body. The psychological term projection simply points to the mode of appearance and not to the ontological status of the archetype, that is, the archetype does not exist as a projection, but rather it appears in projection. This form of speech recalls the metaphor of Plotinus, that the One is reflected by the outer void. In a similar way, we can imagine the archetype reflected (through being projected) on various planes that support the total human experience: the outer world of sense experience, the inner world of imagination, and the unconscious world of the body. In other words, the gods may appear to humans on top of a holy mountain, within a dream during a rite of incubation, or even as a bodily compulsion. Still, the transcendent nature of the archetype is not affected. Here, as in all religious language, we encounter the paradox of transcendence and immanence, each capable of an independent existence requiring the existence of the other.

The Religious Meaning of Archetype

The existence of archetypes cannot be proved, but archetypes can be subjectively experienced. Jung often explained that, as a psychologist, he could not prove the existence of God. Nevertheless, in Face to Face, his interview with John Freeman for the BBC, he admits that he has no need of belief in God because he has knowledge based on experience. In Ordeal by Labyrinth, a book of conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet, Eliade insists on the religious content of the archetype.

If God doesn't exist, then everything is dust and ashes. If there is no absolute to give meaning and value to our existence, then that means existence has no meaning. I know there are philosophers who do think precisely that; but for me, that would be not just pure despair but also a kind of betrayal. Because it isn't true and I know that it isn't true. (Eliade, 1982, p. 67)

Even when employed in the twentieth century by a historian of religions and a psychologist, the ancient term archetype retained the religious significance that it had for three religious philosophers during the first centuries of the common era. Referring both to the sacred model and to its appearance within the world of phenomena, the archetype is meaningless in any system of thought that denies the reality of a transcendent principle. In other words, the term suggests a view of creation according to which this world depends for its very nature on some reality outside itself.

See Also

See also Hierophany; Iconography; Jung, C. G; Orientation; Transcendence and Immanence.

Bibliography

Eliade, Mircea. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. New York, 1954. A good introduction to the role of archetypes in the religions of traditional cultures.

Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York, 1958. Discussion of archetypal theory throughout.

Eliade, Mircea. Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet. Chicago, 1982. The autobiographical material provides a valuable framework for Eliade's theoretical writings.

Jacobi, Jolande. Complex, Archetype, Symbol in the Psychology of C. G. Jung. Princeton, 1959. The best introduction to Jung's theory of archetypes, this small volume provides the reader with a guide to Jung's writings on the topic as well as to related material in the works of other analytical psychologists.

New Sources

Henry, James P. "Religious Experience, Archetypes, and the Neurophysiology of Emotions." Zygon 21, no. 1 (1986): 47–74.

Laughlin, Charles D., and C. Jason Throop. "Imagination and Reality: On the Relations between Myth, Consciousness, and the Quantum Sea." Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001): 709–736.

McCollister, B. "Religion: Intrinsic to the Human Psyche?" Humanist 50, no. 1 (1990): 39.

Beverly Moon (1987)

Revised Bibliography