Wise Old Man and Wise Old Woman
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In Jungian psychology, the Wise Old Woman and the Wise Old Man are
archetypes The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
of the
collective unconscious Collective unconscious (german: kollektives Unbewusstes) refers to the unconscious mind and shared mental concepts. It is generally associated with idealism and was coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populat ...
. The Wise Old Woman, or helpful old woman, "is a well-known symbol in myths and fairy tales for the wisdom of the eternal female nature." The Wise Old Man, "or some other very powerful aspect of eternal masculinity" is her male counterpart.


Individuation

In
Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
's thought, the individuation process was marked by a sequence of
archetypes The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
, each acquiring predominance at successive stages, and so reflecting what he termed an ascending psychic scale or "hierarchy of the unconscious".Jung, C. G. 1953. ''
Two Essays on Analytical Psychology ''Two Essays on Analytical Psychology'' is volume 7 of '' The Collected Works of C. G. Jung'', presenting the core of Carl Jung's views about psychology. Known as one of the best introductions to Jung's work, the volumes includes the essays "The R ...
''. London.
Thus, beginning with the intermediate position of " anima or animus...just as the latter have a higher position in the hierarchy than the
shadow A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, o ...
, so wholeness lays claim to a position and a value superior," still. The Wise Old Woman and Man, as what he termed '' Mana'' or ''supraordinate'' personalities, stood for that wholeness of the self: "the ''mother'' ("Primordial Mother" and "
Earth Mother A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or the ...
") as a supraordinary personality...as the 'self'." As Marie-Louise von Franz put it: The masculine initiator was described by Jung as "a figure of the same sex corresponding to the father-imago...the mana-personality a dominant of the collective unconscious, the recognized archetype of the mighty man in the form of hero, chief, magician, medicine-man, saint, the ruler of men and spirits." Similarly, "the wise Old Woman figure represented by Hecate or the
Crone In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal fig ...
...the Great Mother" stood for an aspect of the mother-imago. The archetypes of the collective unconscious can thus be seen as inner representations of the same-sex parent—as an "imago built up from parental influences plus the specific reactions of the child." Consequently, for the Jungian, "the making conscious of those contents which constitute the archetype of the mana personality signifies therefore "for the man the second and true liberation from the father, for the woman that from the mother, and therewith the first perception of their own unique individuality'."


Mana attributes: positive and negative

In Jung's view, "all archetypes spontaneously develop favourable and unfavourable, light and dark, good and bad effects."Jung, C. G. 1969. '' Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self''. London. Thus "the 'good Wise Man' must here be contrasted with a correspondingly dark, chthonic figure," and in the same way, the priestess or sibyl has her counterpart in the figure of "the witch...called by Jung the 'terrible mother'." Taken together, male and female, "The hunter or old magician and the witch correspond to the negative parental images in the magic world of the unconscious."Jung, ''Archetypes'' However, judgement of such collective archetypes must not be hasty: "Just as all archetypes have a positive, favourable, bright side that points upwards, so also they have one that points downwards, partly negative and unfavourable, partly
chthonic The word chthonic (), or chthonian, is derived from the Ancient Greek word ''χθών, "khthon"'', meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιος or "in, under, or beneath the earth" which can be differentiated from Γῆ ...
"—so that, for example, "the sky-woman is the positive, the bear the negative aspect of the 'supraordinate personality', which extends the conscious human being upwards into the celestial and downwards into the animal regions." Yet both aspects, celestial and chthonic, were of equal value for Jung, as he sought for what he termed a ''coniunctio oppositorum'', a union of opposites. "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light," he argued, "but by making the darkness conscious." Similarly, with respect to the goal of the individuation process itself, "as a totality, the self is a coincidentia oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither." At this stage of development one possesses discernment or some other virtue. Coming to terms with the Mana figures of the collective unconscious—with the parental imagos—thus meant overcoming a psychic splitting, so as to make possible an acceptance of "the Twisted side of the Great Mother"; an acceptance of the way "the father contains both Kings at once...the Twisted King and the Whole King." Bly, Robert. 1991. ''
Iron John "Iron John" (AKA "Iron Hans" or "Der Eisenhans") is a German fairy tale found in the collections of the Brothers Grimm, tale number 136, about a wild iron-skinned man and a prince. The original German title is ''Eisenhans'', a compound of ''Eise ...
''. Dorset. p. 113, 115.


See also

* Archetypal psychology


References

{{Jung Analytical psychology Jungian archetypes Folklore Carl Jung Hecate