"Who or what are these archetypes?" says the conscious mind, alarmed, if never before having heard such dire threats to its autonomy as I have described (perhaps too poetically for the scientific mind). Well, dear reader, there is for one your shadow, repository of all your worst characteristics, swept as it were under the rug of consciousness, only to emerge again in unguarded moments. And when the shadow usurps consciousness, we have the criminal, "into" confrontation, we might say, as a way of life. By contrast, your Self will direct your loftiest aspirations, fulfilling - if selfhood is attained - your spiritual potential. And your most ecstatic moments in life - when you are in love - will come from the archetypes of animus or anima. So you see, the archetypes are not to be feared, but to be welcomed by the conscious mind; therefore, the method of active imagination (along with dream recall and dream analysis) is the best method for bringing the archetypes to the surface of consciousness, in order to live in harmony with them.("Introduction") "The Dream Castle" begins this book because no one can gain self-knowledge without first discovering the nature of his own personal unconscious. If one permits his dreams to speak for him, he will discover both his strengths and his inadequacies, the latter being the archetype of the shadow, which we shall explore in the next tale, "Ruckus in the Well." Without renewal from the unconscious well-spring of life, libido energy is attenuated, and we fall into depression. Without awareness of our worst traits, we become possessed by them. Knowledge acquired in the Dream Castle, however, may correct an imbalance on the side of consciousness and set us aright again. (Primer for "The Dream Castle")
In "Ruckus in the Well" we see how negative qualities of the shadow may be projected onto others. The most important thing to remember is that the more rapport we have with the unconscious mind, the more we strive to acknowledge the archetypes of our personal unconscious, and the more we bring them into consciousness, the less trouble we have in dealing with others and the more harmony we have in our personal lives.
Looking into the waters of the well, therefore, symbolizes looking into the unconscious. The other side of the mask of the persona faces no outwardly towards society and those we seek to charm, but inwardly towards the mirror/waters of the unconscious. Indeed, the tendency in the direction of the unconscious suggests the process of repression, whereby elements unpleasing to the ego are pushed down into the unconscious so that they need not be faced. Akin to an electromagnetic field, libido is a term denoting the psychic energy generated by the psyche. Libido is the energy carrying the archetypes on their projected journey out of the unconscious where they become our personal projections, as we shall see in "The Crystal People." (Primer for "Ruckus in the Well").
As children grow older and begin to mix more and more with the world beyond their own family, they find that the way they are received by their schoolmates is based upon how they appear to other persons. Thus the children begin to create a mask, or persona, in order to sell themselves to others, and also to protect the vulnerable inner person so subject to hurt and rejection. In the privacy of our own room, where we can be what we really want to be and not what we have to be to suit others, we may throw our mask under the bed and pig out or overdose on what satisfies us solely.
The mask is usually in place at the end of adolescence, but sometimes not, accounting in part for the large number of teenage suicides. When we feel that no one understands us at all, particularly our parents and peers at school, then life may seem too painful to go on. In later years, if we look once more through our high school and college yearbooks, we find that the Biggest Persons On Campus were those who made the best impressions; hence it was the persona that got them what they wanted. The persona is a refinement of social adaptation. When one has not made this adaptation, he receives a lukewarm or hostile reception from society. Such is the case of the "poor fool" in our story. However, by observing actors he is able to successfully create a face to which Everyman will respond favorably. So armed he reverses his fortunes. (Primer for "The Mask That Wore the Man").
In "The Crystal People," I have removed the archetypes from the unconscious and placed them "out-front," so to speak. In this manner, we are able to observe the effects of the projection of the archetypes. our way of seeing others is conditioned by the specific qualities of our archetypes. For although the quantity of the archetype is the same in each of us - a prince is a prince is a prince is a prince - the quality of that archetype is unique for each of us; thus by merely observing another person, in effect we have projected our quality of the archetype onto that person.
Since there cannot be a strictly objective observer, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in physics is paralleled by Jung's awareness that merely looking is highly subjective, clothing the object or person in the qualitative garb of our own archetypal projections. Good, evil, love, hate - these qualities we assign to people at first meetings, often even before a word is spoken. "I hated the man at once." Or, "it was a case of love at first sight." Such strong reactions before the other person is known at all indicate that the unconscious archetype has been aroused by the other person and its quality projected onto him.
My story is perhaps an unconscious take-off on the Grimm classic "The Frog Prince." In that tale, we may recall, the prince had been turned into a frog by some spell or enchantment by a witch. From the point of view of Jungian psychology, the projection-making quality of the unconscious is a kind of enchantment, for the other person taking the projection appears to be someone he is not. When two persons establish an intense relation based upon such a projection, we can predict that they are headed for trouble, since neither sees the other as he or she really is, and "disenchantment" is sure to follow.
Jung's psychology, which may have seemed mystical and impractical in regard to the Self, becomes quite down-to-earth in regard to the give and take of the war between the sexes. Indeed, I would say that Jung's most important contributions to psychology are in the area of sexual relations.
One purpose of Jungian psychology is to make us aware of our projections in order to be able to see others as they really are, for in many cases we find ourselves disappointed because others do not fulfill our expectations of them. Thus, a kind of disenchantment takes place and we blame others for our unfulfilled exptations, saying, "You are not what I thought you were."
So the crystals in the foreheads of the Crystal People are metaphors of the projection-making quality of the archetypes. In the matter of love, each of us longs for completion by a polar opposite, the anima in men, and the animus in women. Let us call them Miss Right and Mr. Right. When Mr. And Miss Right turn out to be Mr. And Miss Wrong as is usually the case, we can be sure that a projection of archetypes of anima and animus has been involved in our initial enchantment and subsequent disenchantment.
Yet another area of psychology to which C.G. Jung made a lasting contribution is that of the concept of the four functions. Again, as in the concept of animus and anima, far from being mystical, the concept of the four functions has great practical application, for every moment of our waking lives involves utilization of at least one of the four functions. The four functions are divided into two groups, one group for perceiving outer reality (sensation and feeling) what has been received.
Jungians speak of a primary or superior function, which indicates the one of the four functions most frequently used by the individual, his trump suit, so-to-speak. Since frequent use of one excludes the other, the least-used function, one's weakest suit, is designated the inferior function. The other two functions then are used in an alternate mode, sometimes one, sometimes another.
And now, our journey is complete. We have entered the Dream Castle, descended into wells to reach the unconscious, soared in the sky on the back of an eagle, and even were swallowed at the bottom of the sea. We have juggled personae like masks at a carnival, and having met the shadow, found he could be friend. Through the power of projection, we have fallen in love with frog princesses, and taking a trip on active imagination, we have followed a flute note to infinity. Finally, we have awakened to the world again only to find that all along we had been at home in our own Dream Castle, and that no time of the world's time has passed, and our journey has been to the interior. (Primer for "The Four Rings").
