Why The Similarity In Myths? Jungian View Of The Unconscious

frankiespeakin

Myths? I know to some that is a dirty word, especially if it is being said about something that they believe in.

I'm sure many here have seen that Internet movie call Zeitgeist about all the similarities in the Jesus myth and other myths, what accounts for this sharing of themes found in myths all over the world? Even in peoples that are very remote from one another?

Carl Jung who studied and understood a great deal about the unconscious part of our psyche, became very interested in myths,, because he came to realized that Myths are a projection of the unconscious part of man's psyche,,and therefore they tell us a great deal about the unconscious part of our psyche by means of these projections.

The similarity in Myth structure is mainly because Humans all share the same "collective unconscious".

QuestForThruth

Zetgeist

Similarity In Myths?

Why Zeitgeist?

Catholic Church=Fusion of old religion into only one.

Unconscious? LOL

frankiespeakin

QFT,

I'm not saying that movie is factual, I just drew attention to it, as it seems to capitalize on the fact that there is similarity in myths.

BTW here is a site that might offer some insight for those interested.

http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/who.html

After his break with Freud, Jung suffered a crisis that came close to madness, lasting from a recurring vision of Northern Europe sinking in a sea of blood in 1913 through to a dream of a luminous magnolia tree after the Armistice in 1918. During this dark time he heard voices in his head and conversed with imaginary figures, but Jung used his breakdown as an experiment in which, as he wrote, he could experience first-hand 'the fund of unconscious images which fatally confuse the mental patient, but which is also the matrix of a mythopoeic imagination which has vanished from our rational age.' Looking back, Jung considered these years to be the most important of all. At the end of his life, he wrote of them, 'It all began then; the later details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetime's work.'

Emerging from his creative illness, Jung went back to studying myth, philosophy and religion to seek parallels of his experiences. He published Psychological Types in which the concepts of introverted and extroverted personality types are introduced - habitual outlooks which determine a person's experience of life. He refined these ideas according to four functions of the mind: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition, and considered that, in each person, one or more of these functions predominate, and that the others require development through application if that person is to become whole. Jung put it like this: 'For complete orientation all four functions should contribute equally.'

'My life is the story of the self-realization of the unconscious,' wrote Jung on the very first line of his autobiography, and this process that he called 'individuation' - the idea of continual, lifelong personal development - was an important part of his approach to psychology and to life. Few contemporary psychologists shared his view that psychological development, the growth towards the realization of an individual's true potential, continued throughout the whole of life rather than being limited to childhood. Such self-realization could occur, he argued, by treating the unconscious as a living, daemonic presence: by confronting and examining what the unconscious has to say, a person can come to know themselves more truly and personal transformation can occur.

ZeusRocks

I think it was in Mankinds Search for God book, they had a table with cultures around the world and their similar myths and stories. At the time of course I didn't question the WTS answer to why they are similar.

However, there is a very good explainantion for why different cultures have similar myths. I'll just take one example, that being of the flood. Any thinking person knows that there never was a global flood. However, if you consider the fact that most societies throughout history lived along stretches of water, whether it be oceans or rivers etc. Today we know about hurricanes, cylcones, tsunamis, earthquakes, but ancient cultures only had very limited knowledge of these things, and they can occur just about everywhere as a result of violent storms, so it is only natural that all these people will have stories about great floods with only a few survivors.

Plus I think at a basic level, human beings a extremely similar, and ancient people were no different. They all tried to explain the sun, moon, stars, birth, death, disease, nature all in their culturally distinctive ways. So it's no wonder there are similar stories in different parts of the world, because, people have always tried to explain things they didn't understand with stories.

That's just my 2 bob worth anyway.

Pistoff

This is a fascinating subject.

I first got into it when i saw a Joseph Campbell special, The Power of Myth.

I have read his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, dense and hard but worth it.

I am now reading Occidental Mythology, same author; I bought it for the chapter Gods and Heroes of the Levant. I suspect some of it is dated, but he does a masterful job of showing similarities between existing mythology of the middle east and how it was integrated into israelite culture, and mixed in with historical data, with the result that it makes the OT seem like history.

It is highly recommended.

millions now living are dead

I love mythology. Reality is the stories we tell ourselves.

Mil

frankiespeakin

Millions,

It's all projection even what we call reality,,when you come right down to it.

Pist'd

I think I may have posted that here along time ago,, anyway I watch those videos several times they were very interesting.

Zeus,

As all members of the human species we all have a common base from which we see and interpet the world. We have a great deal of basic feelings and reactions that unite us myths also reflect that I think.

TheOldHippie

frankiespeakin - have you read more by and about Jung, or "just this"? I am asking, because I have been reading Jung for some time, and he is just amazing, he has a wealth of insight so huge and an ability to compare and draw conclusions which is awe-striking.

His dreams prior to 1914, and the "Seven Sermons to the Dead" period - it is quite simply huge. One need not subscribe to all his ideas, some of them might seem a bit strange and offensive, and his manners a bit patronizing, but his importance to psychology/psychiatry/philosophy and the knowledge of the man, his soul and myths cannot be overestimated.

BurnTheShips

I've got "Man and his Symbols."

Jung had some amazing insights.

BTS

frankiespeakin

OH,

I haven't read any of his books in a while,,I'm mainly going to the university library and reading book about Jung by those who knew him most are pretty old,, but these books have helped me understand Jung better. A lot of his stuff is not that easy to understand.

I'm mainly skimming through a couple of books every 2 weeks or so for the last couple of months, mainly because I'm going thru a dark night of the soul so to speak as I become more conscious, the shadow is a real bitch when you start seeing your real shitty side and tons of repressed memories keep slamming you. These book have been helping me pull thru it.

BTS,

He sure does,, I like his takes on religion and religious experiences and how they can heal the soul. Jung would like to see a 4 in one God over a 3 in one,, God the father, son and HS,,, and Satan a Quaternity instead of a Trinity.

http://www.jungny.com/lexicon.175/carl.jung.162.html

Quaternity. An image with a four-fold structure, usually square or circular and symmetrical; psychologically, it points to the idea of wholeness. (See also temenos.)

The quaternity is one of the most widespread archetypes and has also proved to be one of the most useful schemata for representing the arrangement of the functions by which the conscious mind takes its bearings.[See below, typology.] It is like the crossed threads in the telescope of our understanding. The cross formed by the points of the quaternity is no less universal and has in addition the highest possible moral and religious significance for Western man. Similarly the circle, as the symbol of completeness and perfect being, is a widespread expression for heaven, sun, and God; it also expresses the primordial image of man and the soul. ["The Psychology of the Transference,"CW16, par.

Why The Similarity In Myths? Jungian View Of The Unconscious

Share this