The collective unconscious is present at birth However, based on the more recent studies, the existing empirical and scientific evidence to support Jung’s idea could be divided into categories presented below:ġ. While the theory of the collective unconscious is often dismissed by researchers as being pseudoscientific, this is because it is difficult to scientifically prove that images of mythology and other cultural symbols are inherited and present at birth as suggested by Jung. The collective unconscious and (a lack of?) science evidence Archetypes appear consistently in all mythologies, fairy tales, religious traditions, mysteries and rituals, and have the same psychological content in the East and West (Pascal, 1992). Themes of archetypal images are similar for all cultures, they are common to all people of different ages, races, and cultures and correspond to the phylogenetically conditioned part of the human structure. Moreover, the collective unconscious consists of mythological themes, which projected outside, create myths and symbols. Jung believed that the collective unconscious is made up of instincts and archetypes - symbols, signs, as well as patterns of behavior, thinking and experiencing, that are physically inherited from our ancestors and have been in existence across evolutionary time and across cultures (Adamski, 2011 Walters, 1994). Where could it have come from if not from the collective unconscious? (Cambray & Carter, 2004 Shamdasani, 2003). Schwyzer was a store clerk with no higher education, unlikely to have read or heard about such an esoteric symbol. In this case, Jung asserted that the psychotic patient could not have been familiar with the Mithraic myth because it had not yet been published. This hallucination, Jung said, remained unintelligible for a long time, until he became aware of remarkably similar symbolism in a Mithraic liturgy, part of the Greek Magical Papyri, that had not been published until 1910. “Solar Phallus Man.” The case involved a severely schizophrenic patient in the Burghölzli Hospital in Zürich who remarked that when he looked at the sun, he saw something that appeared to be a phallus that was responsible for the movements of the wind. Prophetic dreams and the case of the “Solar Phallus Man”Īccording to Jung, one of the early inspirations for the collective unconscious hypothesis was a bizarre case involving Emile Schwyzer, a.k.a. I have chosen the term “collective” because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals.” This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious.

“Personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. Jung himself called it the collective unconscious (Jung, 1969): Jung expanded the idea of the unconscious with the hypothesis of its second layer – the result of tribal, national, and familial heritage, as well as an archetypal core shared by all of humanity (Thompson 2015). They may be retrieved from the personal unconscious with a varying degree of difficulty depending on how actively they are being repressed (Ivonin et al., 2015 Manichander, 2016). This layer represents a repository for all of an individual’s feelings, memories, knowledge, and thoughts that are not conscious at a given moment in time. The first layer is essentially the same as Freud’s version of the unconscious and is called the personal unconscious.

Jung proposed that the unconscious consists of two layers. Although Jung was an early supporter of Freud because of their shared interest in the unconscious, and similarly to Freud he emphasized the importance of the unconscious in relation to personality, their views on the concept of the collective unconscious differed and eventually led to their split. It was also what separated him from the theories - and ultimately friendship – of Sigmund Freud. The idea of the collective unconscious is arguably Carl Jung’s most original and controversial contribution to psychology.

Collective unconscious