FREE: Four Archetypes: Mother / Rebirth / Spirit / Trickster (From the Collected Works of C.G. - Paperback

The listing, Four Archetypes: Mother / Rebirth / Spirit / Trickster (From the Collected Works of C.G. - Paperback has ended.

Extracted from Volume 9, Part I. Includes "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype," "Concerning Rebirth," "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," and "On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure."

Wanting to have a broader understanding of both "Jungian psychology" and the meaning of "archetype" I picked up this slim volume. I was at first a little off-put by the cultural references to "primordial" and "simpler" civilizations and societies, as I was by attitudes towards gender - I needed to take into account the time in which Jung was writing and the relative newness of the discipline. These concerns aside, I was deeply impressed with both Jung's intellect (the book is essentially a collection of his lectures on the topic) and his insights into human psychology.

The four archetypes to which the book refers are the "mother," "the trickster," "rebirth," and "spirit." Jung's initial discussion of the power and ubiquitousness of the mother archetype was simply brilliant, although when he began to apply the archetype to various psychoses and mental "types" I felt he was getting farther and farther off-base. (This, of course with the benefit of behaviouralists like Skinner, Delgado and Milgram.) The lecture on "rebirth" was fascinating from an anthropological perspective as Jung tied together the various experiences and interpretations of "rebirth" from nature, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism as well as institutionalized rebrith (through ritual and unconscious identity). The "spirit" archetype was a bit metaphysical for my tastes, but Jung's classical education (and brilliance) was apparent as he discussed the broader philosophical and occult aspects of the archetype. His disucssion of the "trickster" was the weakes of the lot - I had expected him to disucss the literary and cultural elements of the archetype, but instead the dual role (positive and negative) of the archetype was what was focused on.