Читать книгу The Magic of Labyrinths: Following Your Path, Finding Your Center - Liz Simpson - Страница 11

The most popular suggestion focuses on what the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung termed “the collective unconscious” – a universal thought that is captured and expressed simultaneously by groups separated by space and time. You have probably experienced this for yourself, when hitting upon a “unique” idea, only to find that someone else has been developing something almost identical at the same time.

The most common explanation for the proliferation of labyrinths across so many different cultures is that we are each responsive to subliminal perceptions. Jung argued that the collective unconscious is formed of two parts – instincts and archetypes, which are universally inherited and mutually dependant. While our instincts are biological – such as the flight, freeze or fight responses experienced when facing danger – the archetypes we each store in our unconscious memory are equally primordial but are higher, spiritually-charged functions.

The word “archetype” comes from the Greek arch meaning “origin” and tupos meaning “imprint.” These universally understood themes or emotional models become significant to different people at different times in their lives – particularly during the periods we call “rites of passage.” They are personified as characters we are all familiar with. Many of them feature prominently in fairy stories, such as the Wicked Stepmother, the Fairy Godmother, the Trickster, the Mentor, and the Shapeshifter. Certain key archetypes are specifically linked to the labyrinth as a symbol of our journey towards spiritual development. The most significant is the Hero – the role we take on when we pluck up the courage to embark on the quest to “find ourselves” and integrate all the fragmented pieces of the Self into one complete and balanced whole. (For more on this, see chapter 3.)

Then there is the Shadow archetype – the dark, suppressed, rejected energy which is depicted in stories as a monster, housed inside a dark cavern, which the Hero must confront and tame or vanquish in order to prevent his or her destruction. In our own lives, the Shadow represents all those parts of ourselves which we prefer not to acknowledge but most readily see and criticize in others. One of the most famous stories about a labyrinth is the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur where our hero enters the sinister maze-world of the beast in order to end the killing spree it engages in every nine years when fourteen young Athenian youths and maidens are sent to Crete as tribute to King Minos (see here).

Archetypes and myths – the stories woven around such universal models of human psychological development – were, in Jung’s view, essential to our human need for self-understanding, as well as to help to mitigate our fear of personal isolation. Jung argued the concept of an inherited “Group Mind” or collective unconscious by demonstrating the similarity of mythologies across cultures, suggesting that these were the building blocks of religion.

Jung’s fascination with the primordial imprinting that leads us to seek a spiritual or religious explanation for the world around us, and our role within it, was expressed through his drawings. It is said that every morning he would sketch small circles as representations of his inner state that day. Jung noticed how these circles, such as the mandalas used as meditation tools by eastern mystics – as with labyrinths – brought everything to a single central point. The great psychoanalyst’s interpretation of this universal motif was that it symbolized the Self’s incessant journey towards higher meaning and purpose.

Likewise, the labyrinth is a universally imprinted archetype or theme illustrating our life’s journey towards spiritual development and completion. As you will discover later in this book, it can be used as both a personal tool and one that unites communities, thus fuelling our sense of Oneness with our environment.