VIP Class Notes (Nicholas)

Listen to a lecture by Aristotle on the “perfect government”.

Vocabulary

misdemeanor — a petty, small crime.

e.g.

assimilate —

“carrying the torch / passing the torch” — when someone dies or retires, they usually “pass the torch” to someone below them so that this new person can continue on with success.

e.g. Freud wanted to pass the torch to Jung but they had a falling out.

“I’m tight with them/him/her…” – informal = I’m a close friend

“jack of many trades” = someone who has many different skills

e.g. Some people may be a jack of many trades, but master of none.

suspicion — i think you have some secret plans.

e.g. I have a sneaking suspicion that you are up to something no good, and you won’t tell me your true intentions.

elite —the “cream of the crop”, the very best, the top.

e.g. The IVY LEAGUE represents the elite univerisities of America.

makeup — the decoration for your face.

e.g. Girls can look a little different with makeup on.

close the sale — you have a potential customer and you need to have them sign so they pay you money.

e.g. Alex took the clients to dinner and tried to close the sale.

falling out — when things between two people fall apart, or get worse, and a partnership ends.

e.g. Nick and his business partner had a bad falling out.

eternal — things that exist outside of time. They are forever. They were here before we were and will be here after.

e.g. Some people believe the universe is governed by eternal laws.

meritocracy — the idea that people are promoted or elevated in their status in society based solely/only on their performance.

e.g. Unfortunately, the world is not a meritocracy because some people are successful not based on their own efforts, they are just lucky, or they have good family connections.

project — the first meaning you already know, I have a “work project”; the second meaning is to take something within yourself and to cast it out into the world.

e.g. Many men will accuse their girlfriend of cheating, but really, they are just projecting their own fear of being caught for their cheating.

e.g. China doesn’t project their political views on others — they can govern how they like, China will govern how it likes.

i was thinking to work in financial related business / i thought i would work…

at that time no one knows it / at that tie no one knew it

help you 3 month / help you for 3 months

if I were still young / if i was still young

much clearer about what i want to do / [ i have greater clarity] = I can see things clearer.

i became to understand it / i came to understand it

i became to realize / i came to realize

i took it as a betray / i took it as a betrayal

Pronunciation

Words that end in -ea.

idea vs. idear

Words that begin with -th.

the vs. de

hilarious vs. hiliris

Is the mind of a newborn a blank slate, awaiting stimuli and input from the world to obtain structure and form? Or does it have a pre-formed structure which influences how we experience the world? This question has long interested psychologists and philosophers alike. Carl Jung, the 20^th century psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, believed the latter to be the case.

There exist, according to Jung, “identical psychic structures common to all” which are heritable and influence the way all humans experience the world. Jung called these structures archetypes and in this video we will provide a detailed introduction to Jung’s archetypes, explaining what they are, how they influence our lives, their relationship to symbols and Jung’s ideas on the connection between religious experiences and the archetypes.

Carl Jung, in addition to being a practicing psychiatrist, was one of the foremost experts on the study of religious and mythological symbology. It was work in both these fields that led him to the discovery of the archetypes. In studying the myths and religions of cultures past and present Jung noticed that many of them shared similar patterns, themes, and symbols. This was interesting in its own right, but what further piqued Jung’s curiosity was that some of these same themes and symbols arose in the dreams and fantasies of patients who suffered from schizophrenia. What could account for such similarities?

Jung proposed that the human mind, or psyche, is not exclusively the product of personal experience, but rather contains elements which are pre-personal, or transpersonal, and common to all. These elements he called the archetypes and he proposed that it is their influence on human thought and behaviour that gives rise to the similarities between the various myths and religions.

To properly understand the role of the archetypes we must first explain Jung’s conception of the psyche. Jung described the psyche as one’s total personality, encompassing all one’s thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and emotions. Jung divided the psyche into three major realms: consciousness, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. These three realms are not closed-off from one another but constantly interact in a compensatory manner.

The conscious realm is simply one’s field of awareness, consisting of those psychic contents that one has knowledge of. In other words, any experience that enters one’s field of awareness takes on the quality of consciousness.

The conscious realm of the psyche, while extremely important in its own right, is according to Jung, dwarfed in scope by the unconscious realm. The unconscious consists of those psychic contents which one is unaware of and Jung divided it into two main parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious, as the name suggests, is particular to each individual. It consists of events of one’s life that are deemed insignificant, are forgotten, or are repressed due to their distressing nature.

In addition to the personal unconscious there is a deeper and more fundamental realm of the unconscious which Jung called the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious consists of ‘psychic structures’ or ‘cognitive categories’ which are not unique to the individual, but rather are shared by all, influencing our thoughts, behaviors, and the way we look at the world. In other words, the collective unconscious is home to the archetypes. As Jung put it:

“From the unconscious there emanate determining influences…which, independently of tradition, guarantee in every single individual a similarity and even a sameness of experience, and also of the way it is represented imaginatively.” (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung)

Jung’s student, Erich Neumann, used the analogy of physical organs to help illuminate the concept of the archetypes. Just as a body is structured by organs which are largely formed prior to birth, so the mind possesses psychic organs which structure it, i.e., the archetypes. Furthermore, just as the physical organs in most cases operate without one’s conscious awareness, so do the archetypes. And most importantly, just as adequately functioning physical organs are essential for a healthy body, a healthy mind is reliant on the proper functioning of the archetypes, as Neumann explains:

“The archetypal structural elements of the psyche are psychic organs upon whose functioning the well-being of the individual depends, and whose injury has disastrous consequences.” (The Origins and History of Consciousness, Erich Neumann)

An important difference between the physical organs and the archetypes, is that while physical organs can be directly observed with the senses, the archetypes cannot. The existence of archetypes is revealed by the arrangements they produce in consciousness, namely through the manifestation of symbolic imagery.

It is only through the interpretation of the symbols manifested by the archetypes that one can gain an understanding of the archetypal pattern of the human mind. Edward Edinger in his workEgo and Archetype, provides an explanation of what a symbol is, with respect to Jungian psychology, by contrasting it to a sign:

“A sign is a token of meaning that stands for a known entity. By this definition, language is a system of signs, not symbols. A symbol, on the other hand is an image or representation which points to something essentially unknown, a mystery. A sign communicates abstract, objective meaning whereas a symbol conveys living, subjective meaning.” (Ego and Archetype, Edward Edinger)

While signs, by this definition, point to definite things which exist in the world, symbols do not stand for things which exist in the physical world, but rather point to the existence of unknown elements of the psyche or patterns of the unconscious. As Jung put it:

“Whenever we speak of [symbolic] contents we move in a world of images that point to something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images, metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. . . (However) there is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes.” (Psychology and Religion, Carl Jung)

It is important to point out that the archetypes do not manifest the exact same set of symbolic images for each person. Rather, the archetypes provide the structure, not the specific form of the symbolic image. The specific form the images take differ from culture to culture and even individually. However, as Jung stated in the passage just quoted the symbolic manifestation of the archetypes “do not vary limitlessly and chaotically”. Therefore, as one takes note of, and reflects on the symbols as they are manifested in consciousness, knowledge of the archetypal structure of the mind can be obtained. Erich Neumann describes the role of the symbol in producing knowledge of the archetypes in the following way: