FREE LYING WITH THE HEAVENLY WOMAN: UNDERSTANDING AND INTEGRATING THE FEMININE IN MENS LIVES PDF

Robert A. Johnson | 112 pages | 27 Nov 1995 | HarperCollins Publishers Inc | 9780062510662 | English | New York, Wholeness Therapy: The Work of Robert A. Johnson

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The bestselling author of HeSheand We analyzes two mythic stories that illuminate the malaise of our time--the wounded feeling function. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published April 15th by HarperOne first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions 6. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Lying with the Heavenly Womanplease sign up. Be the first to ask a question about Lying with the Heavenly Woman. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Nov 24, Sohaib rated it really liked it Shelves: readsbooks-men-must-readpsychologyunderstanding-jungjungian- Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives, nonfiction. This book discusses the psychic feminine entities man has to cope with in life. From the , the mother , the sister, the daughter, the anima, Sophia, and the wife—Robert A. Johnson presents a post-Jungian understanding that encompasses all. I've found his take on the mother complex quite illuminating since Jung himself in Four Archetypes refrains from discussing the mother complex in men on the pretext that it is always muddled with the anima. Anyway, I've quoted the lines that stru This book discusses the psychic feminine entities man has to cope with in life. Anyway, I've quoted the lines that struck me most. Here's what man and woman want from one another in relationships: "Men and women search for such different experiences in each other! He searches for validation, warmth, gentleness to add to his already angular, direct maleness. A nod of approval, a talisman, even a word—these are the heart and of meaning to him. Stability, protection, form, order, clarity, freedom are her needs from her man. He so often fails to hear this and blunders about with great plans and rootless visions and thus wounds her terribly by his incomprehension. Most such displays require an admiring fair maiden as audience, which is saying in the simplest terms that he is hoping to escape from the darkness of his mother complex and instill that energy into his anima, she who will animate his life and give him a place in the fully developed male world. The stake in this competition is life itself. The man starts to see his anima and the human woman as two separate entities; the woman starts to see her animus and the human man. This conclusion makes me feel better about the entire arena of relationships. The ones who make us feel bullheaded and opinionated these are Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives women and sentimental and moody men at times? I believe so because only then the other person is available as a mirror that reflect back to us our unconscious potential—the inner man and the inner woman, the eloquent torchbearer and the seductive holder of keys. Aug 21, Marie rated it it was amazing. I found this little book at a used book store and what a treasure I have found! I read it on the plane coming home from Seattle. Based on the teachings of , this book had a wealth of understanding to teach me. It's certainly no secret that the different facets of personality and personal interaction have been of major interest to me for as far back Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives I remember. I plan to follow it up with the He, She, We books he has written and then Inn I found this little book at a used book store and what a treasure I have found! Then, what sounds really exciting, Ecstasy: Understanding the Psychology of Joy. It appears I will be adding just about every book this man has written to my little collection. This is such a wonderful treat, to find an author and a set of books that excite me so! Jan 05, jo rated it it was ok Shelves: This book was certainly more interesting and more accessible than the last one I read of him owin your but again I felt the concepts and definitions were vague and indefenetive. Otherwise I would give it 4 stars as it had some interesting points. Read the persian translation of it. Mar 15, Pamela Wells rated it it was amazing. In this day and age it is so important for women and men to come together with greater understanding of "Other". What is it like to walk in my partner's or lover's shoes? Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives have been an enormous fan of Robert Johnson for over 10 years and I whole heartedly would recommend this book and every book he has authored for both men and women. He dives deeply into the and explores the big picture of the inner forces that move us to love and partnership and how we can betray ourselves and those we In this day and age it is so important for women and men to come together with greater understanding of "Other". He dives deeply into the psyche and explores the big picture of the inner forces that move us to love and partnership and how we can betray ourselves and those we love if we fail to explore and learn to pay attention to our unconscious minds wise all-knowing guidance. I wish every man had this book in their reading collection and every woman can read this book to understand with greater compassion the men in their lives a little better. Jan 30, Cassian Russell rated it really liked it. All of Johnson's books are clear and readable accounts of ideas proposed by Carl Jung. This book looks at the anima, as the sub-title explains. Simple, straight-forward, it is a good introduction to the concept. Being familiar with these ideas can be of help when living in a monastery, where the inner lives of men can make a hash of simple daily events! Nov 05, Maxine Skuba marked it as to-read. I love his mind and his conclusions. How to be real as a man The many possible expressions of the feminine in the male can lead to a much more fulfilling life, only if there is to explode. Dec 01, Clivemichael rated it it was amazing Shelves: pyschologyself-helpgender-studies. Excellent, inspiring and informative. Worth reading again. Dec 03, Elan Hoffman rated it really liked it. Good book. Hard for me to identify with what is written however the glimpses I have of what I do understand I intuitively feel are deeply relevant. Feb 15, Jody rated it really liked it. Johnson is always good. Not convinced that the anima is truly an inherent part of the psyche of men. Jul 16, Rock Conner rated it liked it Shelves: psychology. Either monumental or inconsequential. I don't know yet. Nov 27, Kirtida Gautam rated it really liked it Shelves: chakra Anecdotal and insightful, Robert A. Johnson's writing doesn't disappoint. It was a delightful read. Nov 02, Daniel Seifert rated it really liked it Shelves: pastoral-carepsychologyhuman-flourishing. A reinforcing text on the inner elements of the feminine in a man's life. Johnson uses a blend of and story, and Jungian insight in this brief yet rich portrayal of archetypal elements in men's psychic make-up the mother complex, the mother , sister, wife, anima, Sophia, Hetaira, friendship and morewhich can feed into a life of value, safety and joy, radically honing differentiating one's capacity for friendship with both sexes. Revelatory Robert Johnson goes quickly through the archetypes of the feminine, the dangers of confusing the archetypes with each other and real actual women. I regret its length, which is short. It's what I needed to hear. I want to read more about the Anima now. I really enjoyed this book for its clear description of the feminine archetypes in men's lives, how to keep them differentiated, and the risks that arise from them contaminating each other. Jungian archetypes - Wikipedia

Structural forms of the feminine psyche. Notes General Note: Includes bibliographical references p. This item is only available as the following downloads: PDF. Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives Instilute Zurich. July ac 1, This structural form must not necessarily coincide with the outer form of life, nor does it imply anything regarding the or the human and cultural level. The outer form of life may be chosen for other than purely constitutional reasons e. The man's problems are different, insofar as being more dualistic by nature co-ordinative or formative abilities and instinctivityhis cultural achievements are determined by the spirit. Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives, Bern. A woman, on the other hand, is by nature conditioned by the soul and she is more consistent in that her spirit and her sexuality are coloured by the psyche. Thus her consciousness is more comprehensive but less defined 4. The psychic element tends to manifest itself in such forms of life as may correspond to the female structural form and to the cultural period concerned. Not every period offers optimal possibilities for this; but we cannot here go into all those historical, sociological, economic and religious causes which nowadays hamper the realization of the structural form inherent in a woman. A review of this kind would also be of little avail, since it could merely show by what factors the psychological problem is determined. What is of practical importance is the awareness of the existence of this problem, and the attempt to resolve the state of inner confusion by attaining greater consciousness 5. One historical fact only shall be mentioned here as being the symbolic example of the modern woman's problems: the insecurity of many a modern woman regarding her own and the essence of the feminine is less frequently found in catholicism. Here, in the of Mary, the cult of the feminine principle as such has not only been associated since ages with the male godhead and not only has this association recently been proclaimed a dogma as foreseen by Goethe in the finale of "Faust"but its various aspects are symbolic representations of essentially feminine ways of existence: maid of the Lord, virgin, bride of the Holy Spirit, mother of , fighter against the infidel, mediatrix, queen of , etc. From an historical viewpoint the insecurity of the protestant and the Jewish woman is due to the absence of her own principle within the exclusively male godhead--the metaphysical parallel to the patriarchal-masculine civili- zation. But religious symbolism should embrace an individual in his or her totality. However, in view of the fact that a return to the past is impossible, those concerned can only advance along the path of an intensified differentiation and a deeper appreciation of the psychological problems involved. The disappearance of the feminine Chinese "Yin" principle in protestantism, including the figure of Mary, as well as meaning and mysticism in cult and myth, and the exclusive reliance upon the "word" as fundamental principle resulted in the promotion of science and technics, but also in the development of the "logos" into a purely rational in- strument with the exclusion of the psychic factor. The ex- ponents of this trend in psychology are Freud and A. Adler, while in sociology and politics it is Marxism. The "elimina- tion of the psychic factor" from consciousness necessarily leads to exteriorization and collectivization, for the psyche is the inner life and the basis of individuality 7. In medieval mysticism the soul is the organ for the experience of God and the "birth of God"; man thus reaches the centre in himself and at the same time in the "primal ground". The modern "mystical" urge does not strive for "soul" but for "gnosis", for "superior knowledge", and thus imitations of "eastern wisdom" of all kinds are consequently in sway. The "soul", i. The valuation of the soul corresponds to that of the woman, as can be seen for instance during the other flowering of the , i. Dante belongs here, and so do the legends of King Arthur and the Grail in which the "enchanting minne" Lady Venus, the fairy Morgane, etc. Also this form of culture has disappeared and for the modern woman, contained as she is in the historical process, two factors are of particular importance: the freedom of choosing her profession and knowledge of birth control al- though the latter can already be found with primitive peo- ples. In the Middle Ages two recognized ways of life were open to a woman: that of the wife and of the nun. The latter offered the possibility of manifestation to several structural forms: charity caritasdivine "minne", visionary, and spir- itual struggle. In this connection it is also necessary to men- tion the witch as psychic expression, independent of any way of life or confession--a heretical combination of magic and the devil. With the revival of classical antiquity during the era of the , Olympus and its also rose again into consciousness--a many-figured soul image for the man, and for the woman a manifold symbolic expression of : Hera, consort and queen; Demeter-Persephone, the mother; Aphrodite, the lover; Pallas Athene, the carrier of culture and protectress of the heroes; Artemis, the maidenly huntress; Hecate, the ruler in the netherworld of magic However, the essence of the renaissance was not a return to ancient religion, but the discovery of nature and of man 11 ; it is the spiritual exponent of the since then irresistible trend away from the other world to this earth, a trend which eventually but mistakenly led to materialism. To be sure, considered positively this world is indeed reality in the truest meaning of the term, and its empirical investigation was bound to result in the rediscovery of certain given, though not necessarily obvious, facts: i. How greatly, besides the unconscious of the man, the psyche of the woman con- tributed to this knowledge is briefly described by C. These few historical side-lights were necessary as a basis for a schematic representation of the structural forms of the modern woman. In actual fact there are probably four forms. They must needs be characterized by names, but I am fully aware of the questionable character of this terminology. They might be referred to as the psychic forms of the mother and spouse, the hetaira companion, friendthe Amazon and the medial woman. In common with the psychological functional types is the contrary direction of their axes i. In view of the fact that all four forms can be traced back in the history of culture, they probably are of an archetypal nature They also correspond to the aspects of the male Anima. The structural representation is the following: Mother Medial Woman Amazon Impersonally related Hetaira I shall now attempt to outline the most important psychic characteristics of the various forms. The mother is motherly cherishing and nursing, helping, charitable, teaching. Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives reacts to all that in man is in the process of becoming, or which is undeveloped, in need of protection, in danger, or must be tended, cared for and assisted. Without condescension it supports and consolidates what is unaccomplished and in need of help, and provides room for psychic development and greater security. The mother finds her fulfilment in her relationship to that which needs protection, help and development by endeavouring to strengthen it, so that in the normal case it can be dismissed from her care or, if this is not possible, it Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives be granted maximum security. The negative aspect of the mother is mothering, anxious nursing and tutelage of the object when the latter never needed it or no longer needs it, lack of confidence in the latter's strength and independence, and interference with its development. The ego is only experienced in its motherly function and is empty without it. The specific danger in- volved is that unaccepted aspects of her own personality may infiltrate into the proteges and may tend to realize them- through them--consciously in the way of guidance Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives, which is worse, unconsciously by infecting the objects and thus filling them with a life Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives is not theirs. Once a woman is conscious of her primarily motherly structure, she will arrange her outer way of life accordingly, either through marriage or through motherly professions and activities. Marriage is contracted from the point of view of ensuring optimal conditions for a home: paternal qualities of the husband, similar family and social conditions, social po- sition, security and career. In the case of maternal profes- sions the place of the home is taken by institutions and or- ganizations of public utility. Important persons Elisabeth Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives, Florence Nightingale, Mathilda Wrede and others have accomplished pioneer achievements in this field. Apart from marriage and profession there is scope for maternal activity in countless unapparent forms of human relationship. Her relationship with the male is determined by this aspect of husband and father of the children or charges, and consequently everything that has to do with his position in the world--which is important for his --is protected and promoted. Whatever he may be in addition to this is often viewed as a threat to the home and therefore ignored or suppressed, so that eventually he may have the feeling of being merely a son or a necessary fixture of the household and will probably exaggerate his virility in his profession or in male company in a compensatory way. If his role in marriage is that of "container" 13 his personal psychology remains unconscious and undeveloped, since for development he would need psychic living space The Hetaira or companion is instinctively related to the personal psychology of the male, and also to that of her children if she is married. The individual interests, Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives tions and, possibly, also the problems of the male are within her conscious field of vision and are stimulated and promoted by her. She will convey to him the sense of a personal value quite apart from collective values, for her own development demands of her to experience and realize an individual re- lationship in all its nuances and depths. Schure's "femmes inspiratrices", belong mainly to this structural form, but they are exceptions just as the creative man is Bliher's Calypso type which can be found much more frequently is a fairly close equivalent, but does not sufficiently account for the psychological problems involved. The function of the Hetaira is to awaken the individual psychic life in the male and to lead him through and beyond his male responsibilities towards the formation of a total personality. Usually this development becomes the task of the second half of life, i. The Hetaira thus affects the shadow side of the male and the subjective side of his Anima--a problem which is not without its danger. Consequently she ought to be, and at best is indeed, conscious of the laws of relationship. Her in- stinctive interest is directed towards the individual contents of a relationship in herself as well as in the man. For the man, a relationship in all its potentialities and nuances is usually less conscious and less important, for it distracts him from his tasks. For the Hetaira it is decisive. Everything else --social security, position, etc. In this lies both the significance and the danger of the Hetaira. If she overlooks the Persona side of the man or of her children or adapts herself too blindly to it, she is bound to idolize the personal element, to incite it excessively and may bring the man to a point where he himself loses his clear vision of outer reality: he may for instance give up his Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives to become a "creative artist"; he may divorce, feeling that the Hetaira understands him better than his wife, etc. She insists on an illusion or some nonsense and thus becomes a temptress; she is Circe instead of Calypso. There is great confusion nowadays as a result of the wide-spread abolition of the sexual taboo. It is the order of the day to have relationships--seen from the part of the wo- man they may either be due to erotic misunderstandings or to professional necessities. For the man, sexuality is the self- evident manifestation of a relationship. For the woman, and in particular for the Hetaira, it is under certain circum- stances its result or, according Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives the individual law of re- lationship, it should even be kept out of it altogether. In any case it is only appropriate when the relationship as such has been sufficiently developed. Instead of beginning with sexu- ality, as is frequently done, it may be the eventual result, once a Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives has reached a certain depth and psychic consolidation and may thus represent a psychic equivalent to the security offered in marriage. But since the security af- forded by marriage or a profession is of vital necessity to a woman, this need may creep unconsciously into the Hetaira relationship and disturb its intrinsic course. One can there- fore say that, paradoxically, the Hetaira is that woman who in marriage represents the "containing", i. Given this, she will be able to realize the relationship, and with it her mar- ried life, more consciously and without any secret motives. On the other hand a married woman who is unaware of her Hetaira nature, or has repressed it, is bound to make secret lovers out of her sons and girl friends out of her daughters, binding them exactly as does the mother who is unconscious of her mother nature. Everything in life must be learned, also human rela- tionship, and it is therefore only natural that the Hetaira cannot begin with it on the most differentiated level. But once she has learned it, she will carefully observe the laws of individual relationship, she will notice what belongs to it and what not, and she will if necessary know when a relationship has become fulfilled and complete. The fact that the problem of relationship may be a vital, but certainly not the only vital one for the male, en- ables him, especially nowadays, to experience under a posi- tive aspect a third structural form of the female, namely the Amazon. Like the man, the woman has always lived in rela- tionship not only to human objects but also to objective cul- tural values. Our time which offers plenty of scope in this respect is favourable for the Amazon who is independent and self-contained in the positive meaning of the term. She is independent of the male, because her development is not based upon a psychological relationship to him. The conscious values represented by him are at the same time her own values. Her interest is directed towards objective achieve- ments which she wants to accomplish herself. To be the wife of a distinguished man means nothing to her; she strives to win the laurels herself. The great sportswomen and travellers belong to this category, but also women who are less promi- nent in public life; e. The positive aspect of an Amazon can be that of a re- freshing comrade of the man--a comrade who makes no per- sonal demands--a competitor and rival who deserves to be taken seriously, who incites his ambitions and inspires his best male achievements Her negative aspect is that of a sister who, driven by "masculine protest", wants to be equal to her brother, who will not recognize any authority or supe- riority, who has not yet crept out of the egg-shell of woman suffrage, who fights by using exclusively male arms and is a Megaera at home. The social or society "hyenas" are also a sub-species of this kind. mythology books for men

Jungian archetypes are defined as universal, archaic and images that derive from the collective unconsciousas proposed by Carl Jung. They are the psychic counterpart of instinct. That is to say they are a kind of innate unspecific knowledge, derived from the sum total of human history, which prefigures and directs conscious behavior. They are unclear underlying forms, or the archetypes-as-suchfrom which emerge images and motifs [4] such as the motherthe child, the tricksterand the flood among others. History, culture and personal context shape these manifest representations thereby giving them their specific content. These images and motifs are more precisely called archetypal images. However it is common for the term archetype to be used interchangeably to refer to both archetypes-as- such and archetypal images. Archetypes, according to Jung, seek actualization within the context of an individual's environment and determine the degree of . For example, the mother archetype is actualized in the mind of the child by the evoking of innate anticipations of the maternal archetype when the child is in the proximity of a maternal figure who corresponds closely enough to its archetypal template. This mother archetype is built into the of the child as a mother complex. Complexes are functional units of the personal unconscious, in the same way that archetypes are units for the . Critics have accused Jung of metaphysical . Since archetypes are defined so vaguely and since archetypal images are an essentially infinite variety of everyday phenomena, they are neither generalizable nor Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives in a way that may be researched or demarcated with any kind of rigor. Hence they elude systematic study. Feminist critiques have focused on aspects that are seen as being reductionistic and provide a stereotyped view of femininity and masculinity. Modern scholarship with its emphasis on power and politics have seen archetypes as a colonial device to level the Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives of individual cultures and their stories Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives the service of grand abstraction. Carl Jung rejected the theory of human psychological development, believing instead that evolutionary pressures have individual predestinations manifested in archetypes. Jung would later use the term "archetypes". According to Jung, archetypes are inherited potentials which are actualized when they enter consciousness as images or manifest in behavior on interaction with the outside world. In Jungian psychologyarchetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. The existence of archetypes may be inferred from stories, art, , religions, or dreams. Jung's idea of archetypes was based on 's categories, 's Ideasand 's prototypes. They only acquire solidity, influence, and eventual consciousness in the encounter with empirical facts. The archetypes form a dynamic substratum common to all humanity, upon the foundation of which each individual builds his own experience of life, colouring them with his unique culture, personality and life events. Thus, while archetypes themselves may be conceived as a relative few innate nebulous forms, from these may arise innumerable images, symbols and patterns of behavior. While the emerging Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives and forms are apprehended consciously, the archetypes which inform them are elementary structures which are unconscious and impossible to apprehend. Jung was fond of comparing the form of the archetype to the axial system of a crystal, which preforms the crystalline structure of the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own. This first appears according to the specific way in which the ions and molecules aggregate. The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal: a possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond to the . The existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the existence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest themselves concretely. With respect to defining terms and exploring their Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives, a study published in the journal Psychological Perspective in stated that the Jungian representations find expression through a wide variety of human experiences, the article summing up. Appearing in all existential realms and at all levels of systematic recursion, they are organized as themes in the unus munduswhich Jung The that there was more to the psyche than individual experience possibly began in Jung's childhood. The very first dream he could remember was that of an underground phallic god. Later in life his research on psychotic patients in Burgholzli Hospital and his own self-analysis later supported his early intuition about the existence of universal psychic structures that underlie all human experience and behavior. Jung first referred to these as "primordial images" — a term he borrowed from Jacob Burckhardt. Later in Jung called them "dominants of the collective unconscious. It was not until that he first used the term "archetypes" [16] in an essay titled "Instinct and the Unconscious". The first element in Greek 'arche' signifies 'beginning, origin, cause, primal source principle', but it also signifies 'position of a leader, supreme rule and government' in other words a kind of 'dominant' : the second element 'type' means 'blow and what is produced by a blow, the imprint of a coin In later years Jung revised and broadened the concept of archetypes even further, conceiving of them as psycho-physical patterns existing in the universe, given specific expression by human consciousness and culture. Jung proposed that the archetype had a dual nature: it exists both in the psyche and in the world at large. He called this non-psychic aspect of the archetype the "psychoid" archetype. Jung drew an analogy between the psyche and light on the electromagnetic spectrum. The center of the visible light spectrum i. Red corresponds to basic unconscious urges, and the invisible infra-red end of the near visual spectrum corresponds to the influence of biological instinctwhich merges with its chemical and physical conditions. The blue end of the spectrum represents spiritual ideas; and the archetypes, exerting their influence from beyond the visible, correspond to the invisible realm of ultra-violet. The archetype was not merely a psychic entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general. He conceived archetypes to be the mediators of the unus mundusorganizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world. It was this psychoid aspect of the archetype that so impressed Nobel laureate physicist . Embracing Jung's concept, Pauli believed that the archetype provided a link between physical events and the mind of the who studied them. In doing so he echoed the position adopted by German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Thus the archetypes that ordered our and ideas are themselves the product of an objective order that transcends both the human mind and the external world. Ken Wilber developed a theory called Spectrum of Consciousness, which expanded the Jungian archetypes. Jung described archetypal events : birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites; archetypal figures : great mother, father, childdevilgodwise old manwise old womanthe tricksterthe ; and archetypal motifs : the apocalypse, the deluge, the creation. Although the number of archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring archetypal images, "the chief among them being" according to Jung "the shadowthe wise old manthe childthe mother The self designates the whole range of psychic phenomena in man. It expresses the unity of the personality as a whole. The shadow is a representation of the personal unconscious as a whole and usually embodies the compensating values to those held by the conscious personality. Thus, the shadow often represents one's dark side, those aspects of oneself that exist, but which one does not acknowledge or with which one does not identify. The anima archetype appears in men and is his primordial image of woman. It represents the man's sexual expectation of women, but also is a symbol of a man's possibilities, his contrasexual tendencies. The animus archetype is the analogous image of the masculine that occurs in women. Any attempt to give an exhaustive list of the archetypes, however, would be a largely futile exercise since the archetypes tend to combine with each other and interchange qualities making it difficult to decide where one archetype stops and another begins. For example, qualities of the shadow archetype may be prominent in an archetypal image of the anima or animus. One archetype may also appear in various distinct forms, thus raising the question whether four or five distinct archetypes should be said to be present or merely four or five forms of a single archetype. Popular and new-age uses have often condensed the concept of archetypes into an enumeration of archetypal figures such as the hero, the , the wise man and so on. Such enumeration falls short of apprehending the fluid core concept. Strictly speaking, archetypal figures such as the hero, the goddess and the wise man are not archetypes, but archetypal images which have crystallized out of the archetypes-as-such Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives as Jung put it, "definite mythological images of motifs However, the precise relationships between images such as, for example, "the fish" and its archetype were not adequately explained by Jung. Here the image of the fish is not strictly speaking an archetype. The "archetype of the fish" points to the ubiquitous existence of an innate "fish Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives which gives rise to the fish image. In clarifying the contentious statement that fish archetypes are universal, Anthony Stevens explains that the archetype-as-such is at once an innate predisposition to form such an image and a preparation to encounter and respond appropriately to the creature per se. This would explain the existence of snake and spider phobias, for example, in people living in urban environments where they have never encountered either creature. The confusion about the essential quality of archetypes can partly be attributed to Jung's own evolving ideas about them in his writings and his interchangeable use of the term "archetype" and "primordial image". Jung was also intent on retaining Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives raw and vital quality of archetypes as spontaneous outpourings of the unconscious and not to give their specific individual and cultural expressions a dry, rigorous, intellectually formulated meaning. Archetypes seek actualization within the context of an individual's environment and determine the degree of individuation. Jung also used the terms "evocation" and "constellation" to explain the process of actualization. Thus for example, the mother archetype is actualized in the mind of the child by the evoking of innate anticipations of the maternal archetype when the child is in the proximity of a maternal figure who corresponds closely enough to its archetypal template. Archetypes are innate universal pre-conscious psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. The archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives and inform human thought and behaviour. Archetypes hold control of the human life cycle. As we mature the archetypal plan unfolds through a programmed sequence which Jung called the stages of life. Each stage of life is mediated through a new set of archetypal Lying with the Heavenly Woman: Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Mens Lives which seek fulfillment in action. These may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death. They are indeed an instinctive trend ". In his approach to the structure and meaning of myth, Levi-Strauss concluded that present phenomena are transformations of earlier structures or infrastructures: 'the structure of primitive thoughts is present in our minds'. The concept of "social instincts" proposed by Charles Darwinthe "faculties" of and the isomorphs of gestalt Wolfgang Kohler are also arguably related to archetypes. In his work in , describes an unvarying pattern of language acquisition in children and termed it the language acquisition device. He refers to 'universals' and a distinction is drawn between 'formal' and 'substantive' universals similar to that between archetype as such structure and archetypal image. writes of 'schemata' which are innate and underpin perceptuo-motor activity and the acquisition of knowledge, and are able to draw the perceived environment into their orbit. They resemble archetypes by virtue of their innateness, their activity and their need for environmental correspondence. In Biological theory and the concept of archetypesMichael Fordham considered that innate release mechanisms in animals may be applicable to humans, especially in infancy. The stimuli which produce instinctive behaviour are selected from a wide field by an innate perceptual system and the behaviour is 'released'. Fordham drew a parallel between some of Lorenz's ethological on the hierarchical behaviour of wolves and the functioning of archetypes in infancy. Stevens suggests that ethology and are both disciplines trying to comprehend universal phenomena. Ethology shows us that each species is equipped with unique behavioural capacities that are adapted to its environment and 'even allowing for our greater adaptive flexibility, we are no exception. Archetypes are the neuropsychic centres responsible for co-ordinating the behavioural and psychic repertoire of our species'. Following Bowlby, Stevens points out that genetically programmed behaviour is taking place in the psychological relationship between mother and newborn.