Influencers | The Snigger

INSPIRATIONS AND INFLUENCERS (True Influencers, not the social media talentless attention seekers)

Carl Jung

This month’s influencer Carl Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded Analytical Psychology and he is best known for his concept of Archetypes, but he also coined the terms “introversion” and “extraversion”, and exerted a lasting influence on the fields of psychiatry, philosophy, and literature.

Carl Jung was born on 26 July 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland, the son of a clergyman; he was a solitary child who developed deep interests in philosophy, mysticism, and archaeology. He studied medicine at the University of Basel before specializing in psychiatry at the University of Zurich. He worked at the renowned Burghölzli mental hospital in Zürich and later collaborated closely for several years with Sigmund Freud, although he broke with Freud in 1913 due to their differing views.

Jung proposed that beneath our individual personalities lies a collective unconscious — a reservoir of shared human experiences and symbols that transcend culture and time. Within this collective unconscious exist archetypes: fundamental patterns of human behaviour and motivation that appear across myths, stories, and dreams throughout history.

Jungian archetypes are universal, archaic symbols and patterns of behavior that reside in the collective unconscious, which is a shared layer of the human psyche that transcends individual culture and time. These archetypes are not inherited memories, but rather inherited "forms" or predispositions that shape how we experience life and interpret the world. They manifest in dreams, mythology, literature, and art, acting as the building blocks of human psychology.

While Jung believed there were numerous archetypes, he paid special attention to four major ones that structure the human psyche around the ego:

The Persona: The "mask" or social face an individual presents to the world to conform to social standards.

The Shadow: The repressed, dark, or hidden aspects of the personality, often containing traits the conscious mind rejects.

The Anima/Animus: The unconscious, contrasexual aspect of an individual. The anima represents the inner feminine side in men, while the animus is the inner masculine side in women.

The Self: The archetype of wholeness, representing the unification of the conscious and unconscious mind.

Jung was a prolific writer who had a wide influence, too great for the scope of this short article, but I will briefly focus on his insight into the UFO phenomenon of the mid 20th Century.

Jung viewed UFOs primarily as a modern, technological myth and a projection of the collective unconscious during times of anxiety, the particular anxiety being the decline of religious belief (the disenchantment of the world that Max Weber had written about, and was the subject of last month’s Influencer), two world wars, and the then current Cold War with the Soviet Union that began at the end of World War II.

Jung believed these "visionary rumors" represented a psychological need for wholeness, unity, and salvation, manifesting as circular "mandalas" in the sky. Jung termed them "psychoid," implying they exist between physical reality and psychological projection.

Jung noted the frequently circular, round, or luminous shape of UFOs, which he associated with the "Mandala" — an ancient, universal symbol of wholeness and order, arising to compensate for chaotic or fractured times. In an era with declining religious faith, modern humanity projects its need for salvation or aid onto the heavens, replacing traditional divine visions with technological ones. Jung did not dismiss UFOs as pure illusion, noting some seemed to be physical, radar-detected phenomena. He suggested they were "psychoid", a complex bridge where internal psychic content (archetypes) manifests in the external, physical world.

Jung saw the UFO phenomenon as a living myth in the making, reflecting our collective fears and hopes, specifically our anxiety regarding "otherness" and our own technological potential (This was the age of space exploration). He called them "visionary rumors," drawing parallels to historic sightings of supernatural "wheels of fire" or angels in the sky.

Carl Jung died on June 6 of 1961, in Küsnacht, Switzerland, at age 85 having left an indelible mark on the field of psychology, and his theories and concepts continue to influence modern psychology, therapy, and popular culture.