Every person has two histories influencing their present actions and future choices. One history is made up of idiosyncrasies, assimilated norms, and life events — the way you hold a pencil, how you dance, the people you’ve loved and their influence on who you’ve become. The other history is impersonal and connects us to our ancestors’ histories and the choices they made that ensured their progeny, and their progeny’s progeny, would become links in the chain of evolution.
At all times both histories, the personal and the collective, are at work. Sometimes these histories seem to share the same intent and focus, if not the same intuition about the purpose of life and how best to live. However, during crises and profound upheaval, like our current times, it is easy for these two histories to collide, the personal history leading to beliefs and behaviors that the part that holds collective history responds to as threats to survival.
The early twentieth century Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung spoke of these two histories as if distinct people: “[in every] human being, however high his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche.”1 According to Jung:
In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche … there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature, which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.2
Jung hypothesized the collective unconscious communicates symbolically through archetypes, universal motifs that create “categories of the imagination,” which through the process of evolution have come to act much like instincts. Like instincts, they are activated by specific circumstances and drive behaviors without conscious intent.3 Jung wrote:
the instincts…form very close analogies to the archetypes, so close in fact, that there is good reason for supporting that the archetypes are the unconscious images of the instincts themselves, in other words, that they are patterns of instinctual behavior.4
Jung believed the collective unconscious was the result of millions of years of evolution and that it continues to influence how we symbolize present circumstances to ourselves, including the state of our emotions. The collective unconscious guides human development according to the obstacles and threats our archaic ancestors encountered, yet also in accord with what nurtured development across the lifespan, thereby facilitating ways of living that sustain both life and meaning.
Of central importance to human evolution, and hence survival, has been a universal sense of belonging in which to be human is to share something that makes us all fundamentally the same and interconnected. Archaic Homo sapiens initiated the quest to create life-long connections beyond immediate kin, often traveling long distances to foster these relationships. Totems, beads, tattoos, and other body markings symbolically expressed the bonds that transcended familial and tribal ties. Yet this sense of belonging went deeper than physical signs, their psyches also giving voice to the existential need for a sense of universal human connection, especially when it was lacking.
Archaic humans’ lives notably changed around 11,500 years ago when Earth entered a new geological epoch, the Holocene. The planet became warmer and wetter as large ice sheets receded. In the area known as the Fertile Crescent, which covers parts of present-day Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, vegetation and small game became widespread. Humans no longer had to follow migrations of large mammals such as reindeer and woolly mammoths to survive as they had during the preceding Ice Age. They began to practice agriculture and live sedentary lives.
By 3500 BCE, the first hieratic city-states peppered the Fertile Crescent, marking the beginning of civilization. This is quite late in human history. For only four percent of the time humans have been on the planet have we lived in hieratic states. Most of these societies have been maintained through dominance hierarchies and thus must continually contend with the consequence of societal fragmentation. The earlier ninety-six percent of human history is thought to have occurred in indigenous communities that predominantly fostered collective harmony and unity.
Jungian analyst Marie Louise von Franz believed we inherited from our archaic ancestors a universal sense of human connection witnessed in the symbol of the Anthropos, an image meant to represent human interconnectivity and shared consciousness. Franz described the Anthropos as a “preconscious potential” that innately guides how to relate to individuals as well as to humanity as a whole.5 Although we are unconscious of the Anthropos since it is part of the collective unconscious, von Franz claimed it nevertheless acts as a “‘group spirit,’ from which all individuals have their being.”6
Von Franz asserted the purpose of the Anthropos is to bring “about group identity or instinctive group solidarity,” although not around ideals or shared activities, but according to a profound empathy, if not love, that guides how to encounter other human beings — “positively without identification.”7 In early myths the Anthropos is often depicted as the collective body of human beings, which is meant to portray humanity as a whole. This archetype is also witnessed today in modern religions. For instance, Christianity has portrayed Jesus as a cosmic giant made from all parts of the world, and his soul has been described as “like the wick of a lamp, twisted together from many threads,” made from the souls of all beings.8 Similarly, Buddha is a symbol of universal compassion.
The archetypal impulse to witness transpersonal connection associated with the Anthropos is also found in New Age philosophies, albeit without always appropriating the symbol of a “great man,” as most world religions stemming from the Axial Age have portrayed leading spiritual figures. Instead, images of goddesses or nature are sometimes used to represent a collective, empathic connection. Less important for this discussion is the symbolic form the Anthropos takes than what these different symbols collectively represent: a sense of interdependency and unity in which being part of a compassionate collective is an instinctual drive for humankind.
With the emergence of hieratic city-states came specialization in trade and craft. People became priests, educators, farmers, traders, potters, builders, weavers, warriors, accountants, and beer makers. Each city-state had specific deities it worshipped, such as the goddess Inanna in the Sumerian city of Agade. The population was also divided according to the affiliations many still held with their original clans before they immigrated to city-states. Many retained their connection to the celestial spirits and ancestors of the communities in which they previously lived.9
Despite so many differences among the citizens of the city-states, there were still attempts to create a sense of collective unity, often through festivals and religious ceremonies. Ideology was also used to foster a sense of unity. For example, mythologist Joseph Campbell described the Hindu caste system as guided by the philosophy “we are all of one body, and each individual is a cell in one of the great organs of the body.”10 Nevertheless, different groups lived under radically different conditions, with different beliefs about their personhood, what knowledge applied to them, who they could rely on, and what was possible in their lives.
Campbell believed living in hieratic city-states introduced a unique stress on psyches and social bonds, one that smaller, interdependent communities likely did not suffer. Social stratification and fragmentation found in hieratic city-states caused “a psychological and social tension — between oneself (as merely a fraction of a larger whole) and others of totally different training, powers, and ideals, who constituted the other necessary organs of the body social.”11
Prior to city-states, and perhaps for hundreds of thousands of years, archaic humans lived with collective belonging as the sin qua non of existence, their cultures and rituals fostering an embodied sense of interconnection with fellow beings. Belonging was an instinctual need, much as fresh air and water are needed to survive. Campbell hypothesized the image of the mandala emerged in response to a fissure between the conditions of civilization and expectations for a sense of universal, collective belonging missing in these hieratic city-states.
For eons, the collective unconscious, derived from evolution, as well as social norms passed through generations, guided the development of conditions necessary for catalyzing the archetypal feeling of collective empathy, if not a collective soul. The lack of this intimate sense of connection is thought to constellate images that symbolize this connection, such as the mandala, especially in dreams. As an archetypal image, the mandala becomes an attempt of the collective unconscious to “course correct” the direction of an individual’s life. It signifies a need for a felt sense of collective unity that throughout human evolution helped resolve feelings of anxiety, stress, disorientation, and aloneness that are common reactions to social and psychological fragmentation.
The symbolic significance of the circle as the underlying shape of the mandala may have to do with the environmental context in which rituals in indigenous communities took place. Excavations of temporary settlements constructed by nomadic Paleolithic societies revealed they were often constructed in the round. Huts, or living spaces, were placed in a circle or oval. In the center, a pit was constructed where rituals brought people together, transcending fragmentation and integrating community. From their separate dwellings, the group would come together around a fire, uniting psyches and bodies through ritual, dance, drumming, and story.12 In the circle, both individuals and community returned to wholeness.
Tibetan Buddhism, which is noted for retaining aspects of shamanism associated with its nomadic ancestors, developed meditative rituals to both connect with the greater whole and retain inner balance. Like their shamanic ancestors, Tibetan Buddhists believe it is the natural order of life for things to continually fall apart and thus also continually require re-integration. Fostering integration was also a central purpose of the rituals and spirituality of early indigenous peoples.13
Tibetan images of mandalas were often two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional space. Tibetan mandalas frequently pictured temples or other significant structures at the center of the mandala. These mandalas served as meditative prompts for imagining the temple or structure from every possible perspective — from all sides, above, and below. Through meditation, the monks simulated taking the perspective of others, seeing as if through the eyes of everyone, gaining both a whole view of the temple but also embodying an omniscience that supported compassion for all.
Jung studied the appearance of mandalas in psychic life, especially when they occurred in dreams and active imagination, a process through which art and movement are used to explore fantasies and dreams. He observed mandalas typically emerged “in conditions of psychic dissociation or disorientation, for instance in the case of children between the ages of eight and eleven whose parents are about to be divorced….”14
According to Jung, the circularity of the mandala compensates for psychic fragmentation by creating an image of wholeness with a clear, unifying center. He stressed that mandala images occur naturally in the psyche and are thus an instinctual reaction to the threat of psychic fragmentation that can occur in response to loss, trauma, or mental illness. He believed, “this is evidently an attempt at self-healing on the part of Nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection but from an instinctive impulse….”15
The impulse to integrate is at the core of recovery from all types of traumas. This impulse may itself be an archetypal reaction, one that arises in response to the fragmentation caused by trauma, a reaction that likely has not changed since humans lived as nomadic peoples on an icy planet. Like our archaic ancestors, we need compassion and collective holding to overcome trauma. Like them, we too are driven by a longing for wholeness assuaged by a universal sense of shared humanity. This means nothing less than we all need each other to feel whole.
References
- Quoted in Anthony Stevens, The Two Million-Year-Old Self (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1993), 3.
- Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 43.
- Jung, 42-43.
- Jung, 43-44.
- Marie Louise Von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1994), 138.
- Von Franz, 39.
- Von Franz, 138.
- Von Franz, 138.
- Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1963).
- Joseph Campbell, Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine. Edited by Safron Rossi. (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2013), 103-104.
- Campbell, 114.
- Flannery, Kent, and Joyce Marcus. The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).
- Robert N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2011).
- Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), 388.
- Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 388.
