The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 8)
The existence of an individual consciousness makes man aware of the difficulties of his inner as well as his outer life.
Just as the world about him takes on a friendly or a hostile aspect to the eyes of primitive man, so the influences of his unconscious seem to him like an opposing power, with which he has to come to terms just as with the visible world. His countless magical practices serve this end.
On higher levels of civilization, religion and philosophy fulfil the same purpose.
Whenever such a system of adaptation breaks down a general unrest begins to appear, and attempts are made to find a suitable new form of relationship to the unconscious.
These things seem very remote to our modern, “enlightened” eyes.
When I speak of this hinterland of the mind, the unconscious, and compare its reality with that of the visible world, I often meet with an incredulous smile.
But then I must ask how many people there are in our civilized world who still believe in mana and spirits and suchlike theories-in other words, how many millions of Christian Scientists and spiritualists are there?
I will not add to this list of questions.
They are, merely intended to illustrate the fact that the problem of invisible psychic determinants is as alive today as ever it was.
The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual.
His conscious mind is an ephemeral phenomenon that accomplishes all provisional adaptations and orientations, for which reason one can best compare its function to orientation in space.
The unconscious, on the other hand, is the source of the instinctual forces of the psyche and of the forms. or categories that regulate them, namely the archetypes.
All the, most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes.
This is particularly ,true of religious ideas, but the central concepts of science, philosophy, and ethics are no exception to this rule.
In their present form they are variants of archetypal ideas, created by consciously applying and adapting these ideas to reality.
For it is the function of consciousness not only to recognize ;md assimilate the external world through the gateway of the senses, but to translate into visible reality the world within us. ~Carl Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche.
