When the Anima brings forth she dies.
Mrs. Jung: Could you say something about the relation of the animus to immortality in the same way that you discussed the anima and immortality?
Dr. Jung: The animus seems to go back only to the fourteenth century, and the anima to remote antiquity, but with the animus I must say I am uncertain altogether.
Mrs. Jung: It had seemed to me that the animus was not a symbol of immortality, but of movement and life, and that it is man’s attitude that gives that different aspect to the anima.
Dr. Jung: It is true that the animus is often represented by a moving figure—an aviator or a traffic manager.
Perhaps there is something in the historical fact of women being more stable, therefore there is more movement in the unconscious.
Mr. Schmitz: Surely there could have been no repression of the animus at the time of the matriarchy.
Dr. Jung: We cannot be too sure.
Mrs. Zinno: The figures of gods carry the idea of immortality, do they not?
Inasmuch as they are also animus figures and come into women’s dreams, I should think one could say the animus carried the meaning of immortality also.
Dr. Jung: Yes, that is true, but there remains a tremendous difference between the animus and the anima.
Mr. Schmitz: Is immortality in the individual?
Dr. Jung: No, only as the image.
Immortality belongs to the child of the anima.
Inasmuch as the anima has not brought forth, she assumes immortality.
When she brings forth she dies.
But this problem of the anima and the animus is far too complex to be dealt with here. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 168.
The anima factor
Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
” The anima is a factor of the utmost importance in the psychology of a man wherever emotions and affects are at work. She intensifies, exaggerates, falsifies, and mythologizes all emotional relations with his work and with other people of both sexes.
The resultant fantasies and entanglements are all her doing. When the anima is strongly constellated, she softens the man’s character and makes him touchy, irritable, moody, jealous, vain, and unadjusted. He is then in a state of “discontent” and spreads discontent all around him. Sometimes the man’s relationship to the woman who has caught his anima accounts for the existence of this syndrome.”
From “Concerning Archetypes with Special Reference to the Anima Concept.
Anima and Animus
A part of our persona is the role of male or female we must play. For most people that role is determined by their physical gender. But Jung, like Freud and Adler and others, felt that we are all really bisexual in nature. When we begin our lives as fetuses, we have undifferentiated sex organs that only gradually, under the influence of hormones, become male or female. Likewise, when we begin our social lives as infants, we are neither male nor female in the social sense. Almost immediately – as soon as those pink or blue booties go on – we come under the influence of society, which gradually molds us into men and women.
In all societies, the expectations placed on men and women differ, usually based on our different roles in reproduction, but often involving many details that are purely traditional. In our society today, we still have many remnants of these traditional expectations. Women are still expected to be more nurturant and less aggressive; men are still expected to be strong and to ignore the emotional side of life. But Jung felt these expectations meant that we had developed only half of our potential.
The anima is the female aspect present in the collective unconscious of men, and the animus is the male aspect present in the collective unconscious of women. Together, they are referred to as syzygy. The anima may be personified as a young girl, very spontaneous and intuitive, or as a witch, or as the earth mother. It is likely to be associated with deep emotionality and the force of life itself. The animus may be personified as a wise old man, a sorcerer, or often a number of males, and tends to be logical, often rationalistic, even argumentative.
The anima or animus is the archetype through which you communicate with the collective unconscious generally, and it is important to get into touch with it. It is also the archetype that is responsible for much of our love life: We are, as an ancient Greek myth suggests, always looking for our other half, the half that the Gods took from us, in members of the opposite sex. When we fall in love at first sight, then we have found someone that “fills” our anima or animus archetype particularly well!
