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Archetypes Explained - A Practical Example
Magnetic Attraction - Here's an old and classic example that's often been used when describing the archetypes... think of archetypes as being like magnets with an invisible energy field... Remember back to science class? And a little experiment done with:

• a magnet
• a thin piece of cardboard paper
• and shaved metal filings.... 

First: You placed the magnet on a table.

Second: You placed the cardboard over the magnet and then sprinkled the metal filings onto the cardboard.

Third: You gently shook the cardboard or blew on it lightly...

Remember what happened then?

Outcome: The metal filings arranged themselves into a coherent pattern (usually a series of swirls) that reflected the magnet's invisible energy field.

Archetypes are like that!
The archetype's invisible power (energy field) is revealed by what (or who) gets caught in their energy field -i.e. the archetypal images and behaviors.

Strictly speaking...
Getting a wee bit technical on you for a second... no one ever directly sees or experiences the raw form and/or energy of an archetype... Archetypes (inherent predispositions) reside within the deepest, depths of the psyche's unconscious...

Got it? The archetypes, themselves, in raw form are not innate images, as is often supposed, but dynamic forms that shape perception and behavior.

However, what we can (and do) see are "archetypal images..." These "images" help to "explain" and "put clothes on" the raw energy of an archetype. Then - in turn - we end up experiencing these archetypal images as archetypal behaviors.

"An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors. If such a content should speak of the Sun and then identify it with the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man...  

It is neither the one thing nor the other... but rather the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet - to the perpetual vexation of the intellect - remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula."

Short Excerpt from: The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, C.G. Jung

Again... the archetype's invisible power (energy field) is revealed by what (or who) gets caught in their energy field -i.e. the archetypal images and behaviors.

Sorta with me so far...?

• Archetypes (stuff we're born with)
• Seen as Archetypal Images (dressing up our stuff)
• Experienced as Archetypal Behaviors (our stuff in daily life)

>> Continue on More about Archetypal Behaviors

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