Archetypes

  Psychologist Carl Jung has described archetypes as key collective patterns and imagery which communities share, which often form the frameworks for human life stories. Examples of archetypes include creator, hero/heroine, death, resurrection, messengers, wise figures, etc. What can archetypes and mythic patterns do for people? I used to think that archetypes were fixed patterns in human life, but recently, I have begun to believe that they are configurations that represent a shared communal meaning around certain key things such as family, marriage, career and so on. They also seem to suggest that there are deep sources of meaning which can be tapped into by way of shared stories and myths.
   Archetypes are often used to ground people in meaningful narratives, but it seems that even Jung was warning against identifying with one or another. This is because archetypes have a certain power to them which is so overwhelming that any one of them can dominate over the rest of existence. Aldous Huxley wrote a somewhat humorous but largely serious essay where he had suggested a need for a pantheon of gods and goddesses to represent the many balanced but interwoven parts of human nature and character, rather than trying to reduce everything to one.
     Archetypes can also mark a certain shift in people's lives, such as having to relocate to some place new or embarking on a new role in life. But tapping into the power of archetypes is not the same as becoming or identifying with them. I sometimes wonder if perhaps the term 'dialogue' with archetypes might perhaps be a more apt term to describe what we do when we engage with archetypes: enriching experience without becoming too attached to the power of imagery and forms that we lose our identity to them. Working with archetypes seems to require some grounding in mindful and embodied practices, at least as a way of counteracting a tendency to become engulfed in their emotional power.