The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (38 page)

Are the archetypes real, or are they “all in the mind”? This question arises with many spiritual experiences, and so it will be worth considering briefly. Certainly, if you are gripped by sexual passion or by rage, that is a real enough experience!

Generally speaking, we consider phenomena to be
objective
if they are not
subjective
, that is, dependent on particularities of an individual subject or observer. Objective phenomena are those on which (qualified) observers can agree, and objective knowledge is useful because it is potentially applicable to all people at all times. Science, of course, strives to confine its attention to the objective, even if it is not always successful. I have stated these criteria as absolutes, which is an oversimplification, but in broad outline it is easy to distinguish the objective from the subjective.

By these standards the archetypes are objective phenomena. When suitably disentan-

gled from cultural and personal details, we find that all people have the same archetypes.

Of course, we cannot observe them directly and must infer their properties from what can be observed in experience and behavior, but this does not make them unreal. Indeed, science often infers the existence of unobservable entities (they are usually called “theoretical entities”). For example, although we can now image them by means of complex

instruments, atoms were unobservable for a century after their existence was accepted, and the elementary particles that are the foundation of contemporary physics are still unobservable (in any simple meaning of “observation”).

the microcosm and the archetypes 189

In summary, a century of exploring the archetypes has established them as objective

phenomena; they are independent of the observer and they are universal, in the sense that they are common to all people. This is why Jung said they reside in the
collective
unconscious, which he also called the
objective psyche
; it is collective because it is a common to all people (biologists call it
phylogenetic
, that is, common to our species). The collective unconscious is not some supernatural realm beyond science, as sometimes supposed. Nevertheless, the objectivity of the archetypes as phenomena does not explain how they arise, what is their cause, what defines their structure, or how they regulate consciousness. We do not need to know these things to live in the Grove, but a little knowledge will help to convince you of the archetypes’ reality and to refine your spiritual practice.

Archetypal Events:
The purpose of this exercise is to help you to identify archetypal events in you life, both recent and older. Identify events in which each of

the following archetypes had a significant effect on you motivation, percep-

tion, or behavior: Aphrodite/Venus (or another god or goddess of love and

sex); Ares/Mars (or another god or goddess of defense, aggression, strength,

or competition); Zeus/Jupiter (or another god of masculine parental authori-

ty, leadership, and responsibility); Hera/Juno (or another goddess of feminine

parental authority, leadership, and responsibility). These are just examples; you

can choose your own from familiar legends, sacred scriptures, and mythology.

The common characteristic of these archetypal events is that either at the time

or in retrospect you felt like you were living a myth or legend, acting out a

sacred drama, or being carried along by universal forces beyond your control.

Try to see the universal pattern behind the particulars of your life and give it a

name, either one from literature (e.g., Aphrodite, Odysseus, Moses) or a more

generic archetype (e.g., Hero, Seductress, Wounded Healer).

Evolutionary Neuropsychology

and the Archetypes

Jung explicitly related the archetypes to human instincts, that is, to the innate patterns of behavior common to all people. Normally scientists study the instincts of various species from the
outside
, that is, by observing behavior. We can study human instincts the same 190 the microcosm and the archetypes

way, but we have an additional perspective, for we can investigate them from the
inside
, from how they affect our own mental state and activity. That is, by personal experience and by asking other people we can learn how particular instincts, when they are triggered, affect our perceptual experience, motivational state, and inclination to act. This is the manifestation of an archetype in conscious experience, for an archetype is the psychical (mental) aspect of an instinct, including its effects in consciousness.

So far as we know, the instincts are implicit in the structure of the brain, in the complex interconnections among brain regions, and in the neurotransmitters that allow one neuron to influence another. This neurophysiological structure is common to all human beings. Like the instincts, the archetypes are determined by the brain’s neurophysiology, but the relationship is not simple. Furthermore, some instincts, and therefore some archetypes, may depend on processes that are not confined to the brain, for example hormone release and the population of gut bacteria, and therefore these archetype-instincts are at least partially physiological, as opposed to neurological.

Jung said that as we probed deeper into the causes of the archetypes, we would come

to neurological processes, then to physiological processes, and ultimately to physical processes. That is, the archetypes are psychical correlates of natural, physical processes common to all humans. Inside and outside, they are coordinated aspects of an integrated human nature.

What gives the archetypes their specific forms? The archetypes are the psychical aspects of the instincts characteristics of
Homo sapiens
, that is, of the motivational-perceptual-behavioral patterns innate to humans. These dynamical processes are implemented by neural structures in the human brain as well as by other physiological structures. These structures are formed during embryological development by cells acting under genetic control.

Everything that is characteristic of the human species—including the human instincts and therefore the archetypes—is encoded in the human genome. It is worth recalling that the human genome is a mathematical Form. It is usually written as a string of the letters A, C, G, and T (abbreviating the amino acids adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) approximately 3.2 billion characters in length; it happens to begin GATCAATGAGGT.228

Since one of these letters is equivalent to two bits of information, an 8-bit byte can hold a sequence of four characters, each A, C, T, or G. Therefore the human genome is about 800 megabytes in size.

I am making these facts concrete because this mathematical Form contains all the in-

formation necessary to define
Homo sapiens
as a species. In principle we or other beings the microcosm and the archetypes 191

with an appropriate technology could create humans by means of this code. Synthetic

biologists have already assembled several simple organisms from scratch by using their genetic codes. The point is that our contemporary understanding of the genetic control of the development of an organism has many similarities to the Neoplatonic view. The human genome—a mathematical Form—indirectly defines the structure of the human

instincts, and therefore also the structure of the archetypes. Therefore the archetypal realm—the collective unconscious—is an “emanation,” an elaboration, of a mathematical Form, and a Form in itself.

The Form of the archetypes is invariable (because implicit in the genome), but it governs processes evolving in time, and so it has an image in each person’s soul. First, the Form of the genome governs the development of the brain and the rest of the body, both prenatally and after birth at least through adolescence. Second, and most importantly, the Forms of the instinct-archetypes govern our instinctual reactions, which unfold in time and space. This translation of timeless Form into embodied action is, according to Neoplatonists, a function of the soul.

I think it will be helpful to explore in a little more detail the accounts given by Jung and the philosophers of the Grove of the archetypal Ideas. According to Neoplatonism, each of us has a nous, which resides in the World Nous and is an image, perspective, and aspect of the entire World Nous. Similarly, each of us has an image of the collective unconscious embodied in our brains and physiologies. As each individual’s nous is a perspective on the World Nous, so each individual’s embodiment of the archetypes is a variant of the human collective unconscious. In biological terms, each of us has our individual
genotype
(our individual genetic code), which belongs to the general pattern called the
human genome
.

Your individual nous (your personal copy, so to speak, of the collective unconscious), as encoded in your genotype, is a timeless Form, but as embodied in your brain and physiology it is capable of modulating your experiences in time and space. The neurophysiological processes in your body correspond to your individual soul in the World Soul, which projects your nous into time and space.

Complexes and Daimons

The
complex
is an important concept in Jungian psychology, but it is frequently misunderstood. Complexes result from associations that are stored in our brains when archetypes are activated repeatedly or in highly charged situations. That is, complexes form by association around an archetypal core. Since complexes form as a result of the circumstances 192 the microcosm and the archetypes

and events of an individual’s life, they are peculiar to that person. That is, complexes necessarily involve personal content, whereas archetypes are universal or common to all people.

In common discourse complexes are supposed to be abnormal, undesirable, and per-

haps pathological, but this is not correct. The formation of complexes is a natural consequence of the associative powers of the brain and of the normal activation of archetypal patterns of behavior. In effect complexes personalize the archetypes to our individual life circumstances and biographies. Although in broad terms complexes allow us to adapt these species-wide instinctual patterns to our individual circumstances, which is part of what makes human behavior flexible, these largely mechanical associative processes can sometimes result in the formation of maladaptive complexes. Thus complexes are usually healthy and indeed necessary to normal mental function, but they are sometimes pathological.

Like the archetypes, complexes reside in the unconscious mind, in the sense that they are not present in consciousness, unless they are activated and begin to modulate conscious experience, and so they can be known only indirectly. Thus, Jung distinguished the
personal unconscious
, in which the complexes reside, from the collective unconscious, the realm of the archetypes. This is because complexes involve personal content but archetypes do not; complexes are individual, archetypes are universal.

For example, the Eros archetype regulates the psychology of love and sex characteristic of Homo sapiens, but your complexes around this archetype influence your individual

patterns of perception, motivation, and behavior in the domain of love and sex. Therefore, what “turns you on” is a result partly of biology, partly of culture, and partly of your individual life history.

So also with all the archetypes. The complexes that have grown around your Mars ar-

chetype will affect what pushes your buttons and how you respond to the button pushers.

Your complexes around the parental archetypes will affect how you respond to people who trigger those complexes (that is, that are, perhaps, unconsciously perceived as parents), and how you will act in parental situations (either as an actual parent or fulfilling a parent-like role).

Jung showed that complexes can behave like autonomous personalities residing in the

personal unconscious, and he compared them to daimons. Since they are engendered by

an archetype, they are like the daimons in the lineage of a god.

An activated complex can in effect seize control of consciousness, “possessing” a person, and influencing them to behave in accord with the pattern encoded in the complex.

the microcosm and the archetypes 193

This sounds like an extraordinary and perhaps pathological occurrence, but it is much commoner than most people think. For example, many “knee-jerk reactions” are results of complexes. Also, a complex is generally involved when we react out of proportion to circumstances. Have you ever got unreasonably angry at a casual remark, or overly afraid in a nonthreatening situation, or inappropriately sexually aroused in a non-sexual encounter?

When such a reaction is peculiar to you, and not a common human reaction, it betrays the activity of a complex in your personal unconscious.

In the ancient world such reactions might be interpreted as possession by a daimon,

which might be desirable or not. If a poet were inspired by a Muse, it would be productive and a blessing; but if a person reacted to a situation with unwarranted anger and violence, it would be a curse. On the one hand, someone might pray to be filled with the strength, courage, attractiveness, eloquence, inspiration, or wisdom of a god. On the other hand they might beg to be protected or released from the sort of madness that each deity can bring (rage, power lust, racism, compulsive sex or lying, etc.)