Archetypal Revelation

[JustLikeYou]

The only part of what you wrote that I don't necessarily agree with at this point is that the archetypes are no less real or pure than their manifestations.

I see your point, and I agree. Archetypes in manifestation are mixed expressions of archetypes, often combined in dysfunctional ways and expressed only narrowly. However, I'm trying to avoid one of the connotations in the word "pure." Consider an analogy: I don't know what it would mean to say that a law of energy conservation is purer or more real than an event in which energy is conserved. The event is simply a manifest expression of the law, and the law is the rule by which the event plays out. The danger I see in using the Platonic concepts of purity and perfection is that they can lead to body denigration.

Similarly, when I say they are no less real, I do not mean that they are not less distorted. Our reverse-engineered archetypes are much more distorted than the Forms that they emulate; however, they are also not any less real because anything that exists is equally existent to anything else (it's all some part of the Creator). Does it help if I say that they are more illusory but equally real?

Now that I'm thinking about it again, Plato's Form/object relationship seems to be fairly accurate in describing the relationship between the Archetypal Mind and our reverse-engineered conception of the Archetypal Mind. The second is a shadow of the first. I am very uneasy, however, with extending this relationship to the manifestation of the archetypes; that is, the ways we act them out.

I do have one question... you mentioned that the personality of each and every human being is a complex arrangement of these 22 archetypes. I agree with this, from the understanding of archetypes as personas. However, I could equally agree with the statement that the personality can be indicated exclusively by the Significator, from the understanding of archetypes as functions. I see both statements as valid, yet I understand the archetypes as both functions and personas. Would you please comment on this somewhat dual use of Ra's archetypes? Would both be appropriate depending on how one is using the term?

Think of a person you know who has a very distinct personality. If you reflect on this person's personality long enough, you'll find that it is specially suited for accomplishing some task in our social order. We sometimes talk about what people were "born to do" as a feature of personality. This is what I have in mind. I don't think it's a dual-nature as much as I think it is a dual perspective on a single reality. To be a persona is also to have a function. And, as ancient pantheons suggest, to have a function is to act out a persona.

Re: Significator. I agree with your characterization of this archetype. This is where all our biases are stored. I think of it as both the story and the storyteller. All of the characters in our mind live here. Naturally, this is also where the reverse-engineered Archetypal Mind will be built. So, again, I don't see these two notions as being in conflict. While personality can be indicated exclusively by the Significator, the Significator (the union of conscious and unconscious mind) also contains the Archetypal Mind within it. I don't know how familiar you are with set theory, but it provides an analogy I find helpful: the Significator is the self-referential member of a set that contains itself.