The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

The archetypal image of the Spirit presents a unique problem to Jung’s assertion that studying the collective unconscious is empirical and scientific. Since science seeks validation while psychology uncovers statements, Jung confesses that certain aspects of archetypal knowledge cannot be scrutinized by contemporary scientific practices. The Spirit archetype is particularly elusive due to its connection to the spiritual realm.

Jung organizes his construction of the archetype and its dual nature through its mythological representations. He looks at how the Spirit archetype manifests in religions, folklore (particularly stories involving ghosts), and language, saying: “Spirit is always an active, winged, swift-moving being as well as that which vivifies, stimulates, incites, fires, and inspires” (210). The Spirit has two main qualities that indicate its presence: First, it is spontaneous, appearing as though out of nothing; second, it produces images that have no connection to conscious experience. Therefore, Jung argues that the Spirit archetype lives in an even deeper realm of the collective unconscious. For this reason, it is the only archetype that causes him to question whether archetypes exhibit their own form of autonomy that is independent of individual or cultural projections.