Chapter 65
Section 65 of Psychological Types or The Psychology of Individuation. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Glenn Morant Psychological Types or The Psychology of Individuation by Carl Gustav Jung
Translated by Helton Godwin Baines, 1882-1943 Section 65, Chapter 11, Definitions Part 7, 25, Identity I use the term identity in the case of a psychological equality. It is always an unconscious phenomenon, since a conscious equality would necessarily involve the consciousness of two similar things.
Hence immediately presupposing a separation of subject and object, whereby the phenomenon of identity would be already resolved. Psychological identity presupposes its unconsciousness. It is a characteristic of the primitive mentality and is the actual basis of participation mystique, which in reality is merely a relic of the original psychological non-differentiation of subject and object, hence of the primordial unconscious state.
It is therefore a characteristic of the early infantile mental condition. Finally, it is also a characteristic of the unconscious content in adult civilized man, which insofar as it has not become a conscious content, remains permanently in the state of identity with objects. From an identity with the parents proceeds the identification, QV, with them. Similarly, the possibility of projection and introjection, QV, depends upon identity.
Identity is primarily an unconscious equality with the object. It is neither an assumption of equality nor an identification, but an a priori equality which has never appeared as an object of consciousness. Upon identity is founded the naive presumption that the psychology of one man is the same as that of another, that the same motive is universally valid,
that what is agreeable to me must also be obviously pleasurable for others, and that what is immoral to me must also be immoral for others, and so forth. This state of identity is responsible also for the almost universal desire to correct in others what most demands change in oneself. Upon identity rests the possibility of suggestion and psychic contamination. Identity appears with special distinctness in pathological cases,
as for instance in paranoid delusions of influencing and persecution, where the patient's own subjective contents are presumed, as a matter of course, to proceed from others. But identity means also the possibility of a conscious collectivism and a conscious social attitude, which found their loftiest expression in the Christian ideal of brotherly love. 26. Image
When I speak of image in this book, I do not mean the psychic reflection of the external object, but a concept essentially derived from a poetic figure of speech, namely the fantasy image, a presentation which is only indirectly related to the perception of the external object. This image depends much more upon unconscious fantasy activity, and as the product of such activity it appears more or less abruptly in consciousness,
somewhat in the nature of a vision or hallucination, but without possessing the pathological character of similar products occurring in a morbid clinical picture. The image has the psychological character of a fantasy presentation, and never the quasi-real character of hallucination, that is, it never takes the place of reality, and its character of inner image always distinguishes it from sensuous reality.
As a rule, it lacks all projection into space, although in exceptional cases it can also appear to a certain extent externalized. Such a mode of appearance must be termed archaic, QV, when it is not primarily pathological, though in no way does this do away with its archaic character. Upon the primitive level, that is, the mentality of the primitives,
the inner image is easily projected into space as a visual or auditory hallucination without being a pathological phenomenon. Although as a rule, no reality value belongs to the image, its significance for the psychic life is often thereby enhanced, that is, a greater psychological value clings to it, representing an inner reality,
which occasionally far outweighs the physical importance of external reality. In such a case, the orientation of the individual is concerned less with the adaptation to reality than with an adaptation to the inner claims. The inner image is a complex factor, compounded of the most varied material from the most varied sources. It is no conglomerate, however, but an integral product with its own autonomous purpose.
The image is a concentrated expression of the total psychic situation, not merely nor even preeminently of unconscious contents pure and simple. It undoubtedly does express the contents of the unconscious, though not the whole of its contents in general, but merely those momentarily constellated. This constellation is the product of the specific activity of the unconscious on the one hand
and of the momentary conscious situation on the other. This always stimulates the activity of associated subliminal material at the same time, as it also inhibits the irrelevant. Accordingly, the image is equally an expression of the unconscious as of the conscious situation of the moment. The interpretation of its meaning, therefore, can proceed exclusively neither from the unconscious nor from the conscious,
but only from their reciprocal relation. I term the image primordial when it possesses an archaic character. Footnote 1. Following an expression used by J. Brookhart, compare also Young, Psychology of the Unconscious, page 41. End footnote 1.
I speak of its archaic character when the image is in striking unison with familiar mythological motives. In this case, it expresses material primarily derived from the collective unconscious, QV, while at the same time it indicates that the momentary conscious situation is influenced not so much from the side of the personal as from the collective. A personal image has neither archaic character nor collective significance,
but expresses contents of the personal unconscious and a personally conditioned conscious situation. The primordial image, elsewhere also termed as the archetype, is always collective. That is, it is at least common to entire nations and epochs. Footnote 2. Young, Instinct and the Unconscious, Journal of Psychology, Volume 10.
End footnote 2. In all probability, the most important mythological motives are common to all times and races. I have in fact demonstrated a whole series of motives from Grecian mythology in the dreams and fantasies of thoroughbred negroes suffering from mental disorders. Footnote 1.
A remarkable example of an archaic image is quoted in Young, Psychology of the Unconscious, page 108. End footnote 1. The primordial image is a NEMEC deposit, an imprint, engram, semon, which has arisen through a condensation of innumerable similar processes. It is primarily a precipitate or deposit, and therefore a typical basic form
of a certain ever-recurring psychic experience. As a mythological motive, therefore, it is a constantly effective and continually recurring expression which is either awakened or appropriately formulated by certain psychic experiences. The primordial image, then, is the psychic expression of an anatomically and physiologically determined disposition. If one supports the view that a definite anatomical structure is the product of environmental conditions
upon living matter, the primordial image, in its constant and universal distribution, corresponds with an equally universal and continuous external influence, which must, therefore, have the character of a natural law. In this way, the myth could be related to nature, as for instance the solar myths, to the daily rising and setting of the sun, or to the equally obvious seasonal changes.
But we should still be left with the question as to why the sun, for instance, with its obvious changes, should not appear frank and unveiled as a content of the myth. The fact that the sun, or the moon, or meteorological processes do at least appear allegorized points, however, to an independent collaboration of the psyche, which in this case can be no mere product or imitation of environmental conditions.
Then whence this capacity of the psyche to gain a standpoint outside sense perception? Whence its capacity for achieving something beyond or different from the verdict of the senses? We are forced to assume, therefore, that the given brain structure does not owe its particular nature merely to the effect of surrounding conditions, but also, and just as much, to the peculiar and autonomous quality of living matter, that is, to a fundamental law of life.
The given constitution of the organism, therefore, is, on the one hand, a product of outer conditions, while on the other, is inherently determined by the nature of living matter. Accordingly, the primordial image is just as undoubtedly related to certain manifest, ever renewing, and therefore constantly effective nature processes, as it is to the certain inner determinants of the mental life and to life in general.
The organism confronts light with a new formation. The eye and the psyche meets the process of nature with a symbolical image, which apprehends the nature process, just as the eye catches the light. And in the same way as the eye bears witness to the peculiar and independent creative activity of living matter, the primordial image expresses the unique and unconditioned creative power of the mind.
The primordial image, therefore, is a recapitulatory expression of the living process. It gives a coordinating meaning both to the sensuous and to the inner mental perceptions, which at first appear without either order or connection, thereby liberating psychic energy from its bondage to sheer uncomprehended perception. But it also links up the energies released through the perception of stimuli to a definite meaning,
which serves to guide action along the path which corresponds with this meaning. It loosens unavailable, dammed-up energy since it always refers the mind to nature, transforming sheer natural instinct into mental forms. The primordial image is the preliminary stage of the idea, QV, its material soil. By detaching from it that concretism which is peculiar and necessary to the primordial image,
the reason develops the concept that is the idea, which moreover is distinguished from every other concept by the fact that it is not only given by experience, but is actually inferred as underlying all experience. The idea possesses this quality from the primordial image, which as the expression of a specific cerebral structure, also imparts a definite form to every experience.
The degree of psychological efficacy belonging to the primordial image is determined by the attitude of the individual. When the general attitude is introverted as a result of the withdrawal of libido from the outer object, a reinforcement of the inner object or idea naturally takes place. This produces a very intensive development of ideas along the line unconsciously traced out by the primordial image.
In this way, the primordial image indirectly reaches the surface. The further course of intellectual development leads to the idea, which is merely the primordial image at the stage of intellectual formation. Only the development of the counter-function can take the idea further, that is, when once the idea is apprehended intellectually, it strives to become effective in life.
Hence, it attracts feeling, which however in such a case is much less differentiated, and therefore more concretistic than thinking. Thus, the feeling is impure, and because undifferentiated, is still fused with the unconscious. Hence, the individual is unable to reconcile feeling so constituted with the idea. In such a case, the primordial image, appearing in symbolic form in the inner field of vision,
embraces, by virtue of its concrete nature, the feeling existing in an undifferentiated concrete state. But at the same time, by virtue of its intrinsic significance, it also embraces the idea, of which indeed it is the mother, thus reconciling idea with feeling. Hence, the primordial image appears in the role of mediator, once again proving its redeeming efficacy, a power it has always possessed in the various religions.
What Schopenhauer says of the idea, therefore, I would prefer to apply to the primordial image, since the idea, as I have elsewhere observed under idea, should not be regarded as something wholly and unconditionally a priori, but also as something derived and developed from antecedents. When, therefore, in the following excerpt I am quoting the words of Schopenhauer,
I must ask the reader to replace the word idea in the text by primordial image. He will then be able to understand my meaning. Footnote 1. Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Idea. Volume 1. End footnote 1. The idea is never known by the individual as such, but only by the man who is exalted above all willing and above all individuality to the pure subject of knowledge.
Thus, it is attainable only by the genius, or by the man who has achieved mainly through the works of genius, an elevation of his pure gift of cognition into a temper akin to genius. It is, therefore, not absolutely but only conditionally communicable, since the idea, conceived and reproduced in an artistic creation, for instance, only appeals to every man according to his intellectual powers, etc.
The idea is unity, split up into multiplicity by virtue of the temporal and spatial form of our intuitive apprehension. The concept is like an inanimate vehicle in which the things one deposits lie side by side, but from which no more can be taken out than was put in. The idea, on the contrary, develops within the man who has embraced its conceptions, which in relation to its homonymous concept are new.
It is like a living, self-developing organism endowed with creative force, bringing forth something that was never put into it. Schopenhauer clearly discerned that the idea, that is, the primordial image according to my definition, cannot be reached in the way that a concept or idea is established. Idea, according to Kant, corresponds with a concept derived from notions.
Footnote 2, Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, and Footnote 2. But that there pertains to it an element quite foreign to the formulating reason, rather like Schopenhauer's temper akin to genius, which simply means a state of feeling. For one only reaches the primordial image from the idea because of the fact that the way leading to the idea is carried on over the summit of the idea into the counter-function, feeling.
The primordial image has advantage over the clarity of the idea in its vitality. It is a self-living organism endowed with creative force, for the primordial image is an inherited organization of psychic energy, a rooted system, which is not only an expression of the energetic process, but also a possibility for its operation. In a sense, it characterizes the way in which the energetic process from earliest time has always run its unvarying course,
while at the same time enabling a perpetual repetition of the law-determined course to take place, since it provides just that character of apprehension or psychic grasp of situations which continually yields a further continuation of life. It is, therefore, the necessary counterpart of instinct, which is an appropriate form of action also presupposing a grasp of the momentary situation that is both purposeful and suitable.
This apprehension of the given situation is vouchsafed by the a priori existing image. It represents the practicable formula without which the apprehension of a new state of affairs would be impossible. End of Section 65
