The Wise Old Man
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Collected Works of C.G. Jung)
W!se old man:
An archetypal image of meaning and wisdom. In Jung’s terminology, the w!se old man is a personification of the masculine spirit.
In a man’s psychology, the anima is related to the wise old man as daughter to father. In a woman, the wise old man is an aspect of the animus.
The feminine equivalent in both men and women is the Great Mother.
The figure of the w!se old man can appear so plastically, not only in dreams but also in visionary meditation (or what we call “active imagination”), that . . . it takes over the role of a guru.
The w!se old man appears in dreams in the guise of a magician, doctor, priest, teacher, professor, grandfather, or any person possessing authority.[“The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales,” CW 9i, par. 398.]
