An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors.
Archetypal image:
The form or representation of an archetype in consciousness.
[The archetype is] a dynamism which makes itself felt in the numinosity and fascinating power of the archetypal image.[“On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 414.]
Archetypal images, as universal patterns or motifs which come from the collective unconscious, are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy tales.
An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors.
If such a content should speak of the sun and identify with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man, it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet-to the perpetual vexation of the intellect-remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula.[“The Psychology of the Child Archetype,” CW 9i, par. 267]
On a personal level, archetypal motifs are patterns of thought or behavior that are common to humanity at all times and in all places. For years I have been observing and investigating the products of the unconscious in the widest sense of the word, namely dreams, fantasies, visions, and delusions of the insane.
I have not been able to avoid recognizing certain regularities, that is, types. There are types of situations and types of figures that repeat themselves frequently and have a corresponding meaning. I therefore employ the term “motif” to designate these repetitions.
Thus there are not only typical dreams but typical motifs in dreams. . . . [These] can be arranged under a series of archetypes, the chief of them being . . . the shadow, the wise old man, the child (including the child hero), the mother (“Primordial Mother”and “Earth Mother”) as a supraordinate personality (“daemonic”because supraordinate), and her counterpart the maiden, and lastly the anima in man and the animus in woman.[“The Psychological Aspects of the Kore,”ibid., par. 309.]
One might even speak of a spontaneous archetypal intervention.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
In the same way, the archetype is not evoked by a conscious act of the will; experience shows that it is activated, independently of the will, in a psychic situation that needs compensating by an archetype.
One might even speak of a spontaneous archetypal intervention.
The language of religion calls these happenings “God’s will”-quite correctly in so far as this refers to the peculiar behaviour of the archetype, its spontaneity and its functional relation to the actual situation.
The situation may be indicative of illness or danger to life, for instance.
Consciousness feels such a situation to be overwhelming in so far as it knows no way of meeting it effectively.
In this predicament, even people who can boast of no particular religious belief find themselves compelled by fear to utter a fervent prayer: the archetype
of a “helpful divine being” is constellated by their submission and may eventually intervene with an unexpected influx of strength, or an unforeseen saving impulse, producing at the last moment a turn in the threatening situation which is felt to be miraculous.
Such crises have occurred countless times in human history.
They are the lot of man, who is exposed to the vicissitudes of Nature and constantly gets into situations where he must call on instinct because his reason fails.
Instinct appears in myths and in dreams as the motif of the helpful animal, the guardian spirit, the good angel, the helper in need, the saint, saviour, etc. “God is nearest where the need is greatest.”
An “instinct” warns birds and quadrupeds of impending catastrophes, and even humans are sometimes gifted with second sight.
Emergencies of other kinds, as we know from experience, evoke the archetypes that correspond to them. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 541-542