“We Are Not of Today or Yesterday. We Are of an Immense Age."
As Carl Gustav Jung, who would have been 149 years old today, once wrote
Carl Gustav Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology, was born on the 26th of July, 1875.
149 years later his influence is still strong and inspiring.
Among his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the human psyche, his insights about the impact of our ancestors’ lives on our destiny and his concept of collective unconscious paved the way for what would later be called psychogenealogy.
According to Jung, the collective unconscious is a part of the unconscious mind containing memories, archetypes, universal symbols, and images common to all humankind. This concept implies that the experiences of our ancestors deeply influence our psychology.
"The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution born anew in the brain structure of every individual."
(The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious)
Another quote, that highlights the idea that the psychological baggage of our ancestors can persist within us, is this one:
“When I worked on my family tree, I understood the strange communion of the destiny that unites me to my ancestors. I had the strong feeling that it was under the influence of events and problems that were incomplete and unresolved by my parents, my grandparents, and my other ancestors. I had the impression that there is often in the family an impersonal Karma transmitted from parents to children. I always knew that I had to answer questions already asked by my ancestors or I had to conclude, or continue on the previously unresolved issues”.
(At the Dawn of the 21st Century what do we do for our Dead?)
Jung’s legacy is huge. He was a prolific and fascinating writer. If you don’t know where to begin, I suggest you read his autobiography, written when he was eighty-one years old: Memories, Dreams, Reflections; a great book to discover this extraordinary man and his theories.
I’ll elaborate on his contribution to our understanding of the human mind some other time. Today, on this special date, I just wanted to pay tribute to his work.
I’ve been wanting to read Jung for years now and looking forward to more of your writing on him. I had no idea he wrote about family history!
I love Jung's way of approaching "ancestral baggage," comprised of the unanswered questions asked by previous generations. I write about this very energy, calling it simply, "story." I believe we are all carrying the stories we inherited, filled with questions, untold tales, beliefs, attitudes, and other story pieces that want to be told. We do not have to know the stories to inherit and carry them. As author Chinua Achebe said, the story may be carrying us. I have always believed that an untold story will travel across generational lines and tell itself, if not in our own lives, in the lives of our children and grandchildren.