The Archetype and its Refracted Images



All cut from the same wool.
All telling a yarn.
All a teller’s work of art.
All an artist’s masterpiece.

Nature of archetypes.
Imagined — not seen.
‘Seen’ — only in various forms.
Archetypal images.

Revealed in ancient myths.
Exposed in legends.
Most fairytales display them;
Glorified in religions.

As icons of wonder
In majestic awe,
Their mighty presence is shown,
As Almighty images.

The form is pure image,
Woven by artists;
Archetypal forerunners
Of the hidden archetype.

Archetypes are unseen.
Seen as depictions.
Takes One to know The Other
In various images.

Prophets are artisans.
Storytellers, too.
With divine inspiration;
Of numinous messages.

The divine inspires.
The mysterious
Remaining ever hidden;
Hidden in numinous tales.

Myths, legends, fairytales
Preserve images
Of what is archetypal;
And dreams are their containers.

Viewing through night lenses,
We are all dreamers;
Scripting archetypal tales
On a canvas without light.

A light shining in darkness
Is what our souls need.
The archetype is such light;
Refracted in images.

About this poem

Concerning Archetypes, Religions, Mythologies, and the Numinous Expressions of ‘The Unseen Realm of the Collective Unconscious’: Archetypal images are containers of archetypes, which themselves are ‘psychic aspects’ or dispositions, universal patterns or images of the Jungian hypothesized ‘Collective Unconscious’ that are inherited along with the human brain structures. In short, to be ‘human,’ is to have the innate capacity to image the divine; is to have inherited in the DNA of one’s Collective Unconscious an archetypal image of the divine. An archetypal image is described generally as the form or representation of an archetype; as an attribute that appears physically, in concrete manifestation to the human material state of consciousness. Mankind, being incarnate, can only experience the powers of the non-physical spiritual realm in terms of anthropomorphic personification: hence, the conceptualization of that realm as such. Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), referring to the indefiniteness of the archetype with its multiple meanings, describes it as “a [psychic] dynamism which makes itself felt in the [‘Mystery’ of the] numinosity and fascinating power of the [hidden] archetypal (Carl G. Jung, reporting “On the Nature of the Psyche” in Bollingen Series, CW 8, par. 414, 1967). Carl Jung, in his commentary on “Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939, Vol. 11 (19 October 1938), p. 1351,” states further: “All religions are full of [archetypal] figures from the [collective] unconscious.” To emphasize, it is Carl Jung’s contention that all powerful and religious symbols universally arise from the collective unconscious as their common source. This poem introduces its readers to the complex nature of archetypes, which reveal aspects of their numinous presence in their manifold association with ‘concrete’ archetypal images. Some classical examples of the many archetypes that are manifested universally in human existential experience are those of “The Hero,” “The Anti-Hero” or “Villain,” “The Wise Old Man,” “The Trickster,” “The Shadow,” “The Healer,” “The Savior,” “The Divine Father,” “The Divine Mother,” and the core archetype of “THE SELF” with its associated multicultural images. The archetypal images that are typically associated with those archetypes, appear to us as imaginary, real-life, historical, multicultural personalities considered to have led a life that is supremely representative or exemplary of, or ‘fits’ the archetype (the ‘divine’ or the ‘demonic’) , whose dynamic structure and inherent nature continue to baffle and to remain beyond the comprehension of the human intellect and beyond ordinary conscious experience. In short, archetypal images, as living motifs, or as physical representations of the conceptualized numinous archetypes, all of which are ‘cut from the same psychic wool,’ can be considered to be “refracted images” of the invisible and unknown archetypes themselves. As such, they present themselves in human perception and imagination, assigned with either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ attribution. The Apostle Saint Paul of the New Testament, in his poignant declaration of our vague and obscure understanding of the numinous realm, states the following, in First Corinthians 13: 12: “For now, we [as mere mortals] ‘see’ [image the Supreme Divine Archetype of the Holy Spirit] through a [refracted] glass darkly, but then, face-to-face…” However, the Apostle Paul, in First Corinthians 3:17, and again, in First Corinthians 6:19, offers humanity a “Good News” outlook of the divine realm, suggesting that the human body, in concert with the Holy Spirit, is sacred space. In those passages he announces to his Corinthian audience and, by extension, to all succeeding generations the following: “Your body [as an archetypal image] is the [residential] temple of the Holy Spirit and you together are that temple.” Similarly, the Apostle Saint John (in John 15:5) makes mention of the mysterious symbiotic relationship of Spirit and Matter, as revealed in the declaration of Christ that “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Collectively, these statements declare categorically that all of humanity is made in God’s SELF-Image; and by the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is given Grace. All of humanity may therefore be regarded as ‘refracted images’ (‘propagated psychic energy’) of the Archetype of the Indwelling Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit, by Grace, is projected onto mortal human souls. Employing psychological language, Carl Jung declares this phenomenon as a core objective of the realm of the Collective Unconscious. Elaborating on this phenomenon, Jung declares that the teleological aim of the psyche for human civilization is to achieve a sense of fulfillment and wholeness, if not completion or perfection. This activity is summarized by Jung as the goal of Individuation, or the integration of the disparate components of the psyche. In the metaphorical language of Christianity’s projection of the numinous psyche, this transformative goal is expressed in the universality of the God archetype as humanity ‘becoming a new person in Christ.’ 

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Written on December 21, 2022

Submitted by karlcfolkes on December 21, 2022

Modified by karlcfolkes on January 03, 2023

1:03 min read
656

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXX XAXB XXXC DXXB XXEX ACDB CXFB XGFH HBXE BEHI GXIB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,075
Words 212
Stanzas 11
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

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