MUSIC, IMAGE, AND ARCHETYPE- Introduction
I’m sure a great many of us have had the sensation of goosebumps when listening to particularly impactful music, or marveled over the intense emotions that come to the surface of consciousness while watching a film accompanied by a poignant score or reading a favorite story. It is my hunch that these different types of experiences or processes (e.g. those triggered by the listening of music unaccompanied by visuals in the objective & internal realms, the cinematic experience of film & music), and their potential physiological counterparts, are activating and stemming from the same, inborn place(s) within the human psyche- they are hinting at a great mythic force of the human experience within us all. There is evidence to support the idea that they are interlinked and are apart of the same or similar psychic processes.
In the essays to come, I will attempt to expand on the connections and specific mechanisms extant in these phenomenon. Through my research, I stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak, in that I draw upon the work of brilliant minds who have laid the groundwork for me to be able to describe, or rather, only hint at describing things that are ultimately ineffable. There’s a zen saying which reads “Do not confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.” This brings me to two points. One is that I am not simply expanding upon these subjects for reasons of sheer intellectual curiosity. The curiosity originates from the noetic fact that I have come to know, ponder and observe these aforementioned “ineffable phenomenon” through my own experience as empirical realities, namely through the symbiosis of music and resultant/corresponding mental imagery. The term “ineffable phenomenon” brings me to my second point and that is that we are investigating something that, in the end, can not be fully described. A musical or cinematic experience that is powerful enough may even be regarded as a sort of religious experience, or perhaps, an encounter with something numinous. The previously mentioned goosebump sensation can often accompany such an experience.
The term numinous denotes a supernatural, unknown quality that can inspire feelings of awe or sort of curiously mystic inspiration and or terror. In psychoanalytic terms, this numinous feeling comes about when one is confronted with something previously unknown in that it stems from an unconscious realm. Through Kantian philosophy, the related word “noumenon” is expanded upon. Whereas “phenomenon” deal with things as they interpreted by the human mind, “noumenon” refer to things as they are in themselves, outside the realm of full comprehension. The word numen is Latin in origin, and originally meant “to nod.” “It came to mean ‘divine will or divine power of the gods’ from the Greek and Roman practice of going to a temple to consult the will of the gods, at times when a person confronted a serious decision. In the temple the supplicant would stand before a statue of the god, state his problem, ask the god for guidance and then watch the statue. If it seemed to nod, the person knew the god approved the tack he planned to take. Over time numen came to be synonymous with ‘deity,’ ‘Godhead,’ divinity or ‘divine majesty.’ (Jungian Center)
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung, who will be continually cited throughout these essays, came to use the subsequently invented word numinous in relation to his psychological studies and treatment of patients. Jung borrowed the term from a German professor of theology, Max Otto, who coined it when confronted with the desire to have a word that denoted a religious, awe inspiring quality away from the normal associations of Christian dogma and the like. (Ibid) In more Jungian terms, it can be said that a numinous experience is the product of contact with an archetype. I believe that it is through the study of Jung’s theory of archetypes that we can also study what interlinks the vital human activities and experiences of music and myth, of sound and imagery. It is through this study that we can, in more specific terms, come to know of the powerful, internal forces we are coming into contact with when we go to the theater, to the turntable, to the library, to our musical instruments—to our own internal cinema. One of my main theses is that music and its various manifestations (film scores, symphonies, etc.) serve as prime catalysts and manifestations of archetypal behavior. Although these types of internal activities can have a mystical quality about them, we would be making a mistake in dismissing them as mere hocus pocus or unreal— they point towards an inherited biological reality with personal developmental and evolutionary implications.
The most common definition of an archetype usually involves verbiage like “the most common example of, a “typical example of”, etc. The etymology of the word can be described as follows- “Arche means ‘beginning, origin cause, primal source and principle.’ The word is also defined as ‘position of a leader, supreme rule and government.’ Type is interpreted as a ‘blow and what is produced by a blow, the imprint of a coin… form, image, copy, prototype, model, order, and norm.’: a primordial or underlying form.” (Knapp, p. 3)
This idea of commonality or ubiquitousness comes into play in the Jungian definition of the word as well, which is often misunderstood. In essence, archetypes, in Jungian terms, are inborn, patterns of human behavior that deal with apprehension in a motivic nature. As written by Jung:
“The term is not meant to note an inherited idea, but rather an inherited form of psychic functioning, corresponding to the inborn way in which the chick emerges from the egg, the bird builds its nest, a certain kind of wasp stings the motor ganglion of the caterpillar, and eels find their way to the Bermudas. In other words, it is a ‘pattern of behavior.’ This aspect of the archetype is the biological one…But the picture changes at once when looked at from the inside, that is, from the realm of the subjective psyche. Here the archetype presents itself as numinous, that is, it appears as an experience of fundamental importance.” (Ibid, p.3)
In this paragraph, Jung implies the importance of the presence of an image when it comes to activating, or the presence of an archetype, that images both trigger and act as representatives of the instincts of the psyche. As alluded to before, we can not know the archetypes directly or in totality. We can come to know them through emotionally charged images, or “vapor” like communications, according to mythologist Joseph Campbell, who stated in the introduction of The Hero With a Thousand Faces:
“The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors…images up to the mind—whether in a dream, broad daylight or insanity; for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspecting Aladdin caves…And they [the unconscious images] may remain unsuspected, or, on the other hand, some chance word…or the glance of an eye may touch a magic spring, and then dangerous messengers appear in the brain. These are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of security into which we have built ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too, for they carry the keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of the self.” (Campbell, p.5)
These inborn, a priori behavior patterns known as archetypes are the result of repeated human experience imprinted on the mind and passed down for eons. It could be said that when we come into contact with them, we are, in a way, coming into contact with our ancient ancestors, to a collective human experience. The term a priori is of particular importance here, because it implies something that is written into the code of our psyche, and only needs activation, not teaching, to bring it forth. In his book Archetypes, Dr. Anthony Stevens relates the way a newly hatched group of baby chicks cowers instinctually in the presence of wooden model of a hawk being held overhead. (Stevens, p.56) This indicates the activation of an archetype, not learned behavior. In much the same way baby chicks inherit these beneficial modes of apprehension and functioning in response to the typical situations of life, so as well, do human beings. For the less evolved animal, it is more or less an unconscious process and call to life. For human beings, with the gift of conscious distinction and evolved creative abilities, it can become art. A uniquely human manifestation of this inborn, archetypal behavior that guides us through life is the myth: the repeating, motivic tales of human existence through primordial images and their evolving representations.
The archetype is what imparts that “otherworldliness,” of an ancient, inherited past into our present day lives. Having done research into the work of Jung and others concerning archetypes, and realizing that they were primordial, inborn structures of the psyche which find form via affectual, imagistic means, I’ve made the connection to what I had been experiencing when listening to music. Mainly that these aforementioned processes/phenomena (e.g. listening to music) often give rise to imagery, with dormant affect and emotions bringing with them that othwerworldy sensation and almost mystical allure.
Jung, Campbell, and Stevens, are not alone as scientists and scholars in their awareness of the human archetypes. Take for instance polymath Adolf Bastian’s theory of “Elementary Ideas”: “the spiritual (or psychic) germinal dispositions out of which the whole social structure has been developed organically;” or anthropologist Franz Boas, who stated, “…the appalling monotony of the fundamental ideas of mankind all over the globe…Certain patterns of associated ideas may be recognized in all types of culture.” Freud wrote “I recognized the presence of symbolism in dreams from the very beginning…This symbolism is not peculiar to dreams, but is characteristic of unconscious ideation, in particular among the people, and can be found in folklore and popular myths…” In Human All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche professed, “In our sleep and in our dreams we pass through the whole thought of earlier humanity. I mean, in the same way that man reasons in his dreams, he reasoned when in the waking state many thousands of years…The dream carries us back into earlier states of human culture, and affords us a means of understanding it better.” (Campbell, p.13)
Nietzsche’s most commonly known aphorisms “Out of life’s war, what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” and “God is dead…And we have killed him,” still have a grip on many in the modern age. The latter statement is often confused as being one of jubilance, but is in fact, one of portentousness, of concern. Like Jung, and prior to him, Nietzsche recognized the potential coming nihilism that would follow the end of the western world’s predominantly Christian millennia, or, as it has been referred to by Jung, the Christian aeon (Greek: Aion). With the “death of god” came the enlightenment, and advances in reason, science and technology that have done, and continue to do wonders for human civilization. But can the same be said about man’s psychological well being? Without the Christian myth, or the like, what will be done with our psychologically existential dilemmas? Putting the orthodox customs of religion aside, the myth (in reductive terms: the unconscious creative processes that give meaning and have deleterious effects if ignored), is something neither Nietzsche or Jung believed man could fare without. Without the meaning and telos of a self actualized life, the lack of faith has left many to worship and find meaning in nothing, or to worship and find meaning in the state (i.e. nihilism and totalitarianism, respectively). (Academy of Ideas)
Now, in the midst of an outer world crisis, the looming specter of totalitarianism, and the questioning of life’s meaning moving forward, we are all facing our own internal world more than many are used to, and a collective call for transformation beckons. Perhaps, decades ago, Jung and Nietzsche foresaw one of the current, defining predicaments of the modern world: the disintegration of the role of myth and corresponding arts in regular human life, and through or maybe parallel to it, the potential loss of meaning; the possible loss of integrating our more instinctual selves with our advanced intellectual and rational side to become more consciously integrated and evolved individuals. This perhaps, represents our collective call to adventure— the story of our time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Academy of Ideas. “Nietzsche and Jung: Myth and the Age of the Hero.” Academy of Ideas, 10 Dec. 2018, academyofideas.com/2018/11/nietzsche-jung-myth-age-of-the-hero/.
Archetype Revisited: An Updated Natural History of the Self, by Dr. Anthony Stevens, Routledge, 2015, p. 56.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, New World Library, 2008
Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences. “Jung and The Numinosum.” Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences, jungiancenter.org/jung-and-the-numinosum/.
Music, Archetype and the Writer: a Jungian View, by Bettina Liebowitz Knapp, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988, p. 3.