The Unconscious

Jungian psychology is based upon the premise that the psyche—the sum total of human consciousness—is real. The psyche is composed of two main areas: consciousness and the unconscious. Consciousness is a relatively small part of the psyche ruled by the ego. The unconscious, by contrast, is a much larger area of psychic reality characterized by its mysterious quality which always remains, on one level, entirely unknowable. C. G. Jung explained that the unconscious surrounds consciousness on all sides while Jolande Jacobi likened its depth and breadth to an inner cosmos which is as infinite as the outer one. The unconscious is, furthermore, intrinsically creative—it spontaneously generates images. Jung called this imaginal capacity of the psyche its myth-making function, for the unconscious is a creative storyteller, a transpersonal (nonhuman) realm teeming with potential life, as opposed to being only a repository for forgotten and repressed contents, as Freud believed. It is a living field of reality complete with its own autonomy typically manifested in symbolic and metaphorical primordial images that are inherent to its structure.

Structural and Psychodynamic Aspects of the Psyche

The potential for life contained in the unconscious is actualized through certain structural and psychodynamic realities such as complexes and archetypes. Jung defined complexes as clusters of feeling-toned images that congregate around a central (archetypal) nucleus such as “Mother.” A complex is formed when a traumatic event tears asunder two parts of ourselves creating a fringe or splinter identity with its own energetic reality, its own autonomy, and an uncanny ability to absorb the ego into itself causing a state of possession experienced as a temporary alteration of personality. Complexes are therefore typically distinguished by the disturbances and symptoms they cause in the normal functioning of conscious processes. Jacobi connects complexes to the teleological thrust of the psyche by pointing out that complexes must be raised up into consciousness and assimilated so that a redistribution of psychic energy (libido) takes place. In this way, complexes exert a generative influence upon the psyche, using an autonomous existence manifested (through personified form) in dreams to drum up a relational field between ego and the unconscious. Complexes are thus the building blocks of consciousness, carriers of psychic energy, holders of images and their symbolic content.

Fundamentally, complexes are emotional psychic creatures distinguished by their high affectivity, for their meaning is contained in the feeling function which remains opaque in the face of intellectual regard. It is important to mention, however, that for Jung, complexes were not only manifestations of pathological states (as they were for Freud) but also intrinsic to the psychology of healthy individuals. The nodal point of the complex, arising as it does from the realm beyond, is never pathological, but primordial and universal, for complexes arise out of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes belong to the collective unconscious while complexes belong to the personal unconscious, which is where an archetype puts on the clothing of a personal content with specific significance for the individual encountering it.

Jung insisted that archetypes “as such”—which he saw as a priori psychological instincts that condition conscious apprehension—cannot be exactly defined for their nature is utterly mysterious and unknowable. This is because they abide in the collective unconscious which is a suprapersonal realm that lies beyond conscious rational understanding. They can only be known through their effects which manifest in metaphorical and symbolic images observed in dreams, fantasies, visions, mythology, and fairy tales. Archetypes possess a numinous power which, when translated into an imaginal experience in the conscious psyche, exerts a tremendous influence that, in effect, causes certain specific behaviors to arise. Archetypes are structural conditioning factors, autonomous, unalterable, and fundamental to the psyche. They are dynamic, alive, numinous, fascinating, powerful, mysterious, and, above all, as Jung insists, ambivalent. Archetypes take recognizable form only when they come into contact with the personal unconscious and its contents at which point they manifest in symbols. Classic Jungian complexes and archetypes defined as structural elements of the psyche are called Ego, Persona, Shadow, Anima/Animus, and the Self.

Phenomenal and Experiential Aspects of the Psyche

Jung has said that archetypes are akin to actionable psychic organizations which means that they have a role to play in the creation of consciousness. This has to do with what Jung has called the teleological aspect of the psyche—its inherent need to move toward a goal, which is the synthesis of conscious and unconscious realms into a state of equilibrium where the centering unit of consciousness, the ego, is grounded in and informed by the more profound centering unit of the total psyche—the archetype of the Self. To achieve this wholesome state of consciousness, which is what Jung called individuation, the objective psyche spontaneously generates symbolic images in order to communicate its intentions and needs to the conscious sphere. For life to be complete, external life must correspond with the imaginal and metaphorical version of it taking place on a symbolic level in the psyche. A sort of dialectic process therefore unfolds between conscious and unconscious spheres of psychic reality with symbols acting as the connecting bridge. Symbols shuttle the unknowns of the deep objective psyche into the realm of consciousness using images. Jungian images are not restricted to visual styles but encompass any spontaneous emanation from the deep psyche which can take the form of thoughts, ideas, emotions and affects, visions, sudden insights and inspirations, creative output of any kind, dreams, and rituals, to name a few. By interacting with these symbolic images through methods (reintroduced by Jung) such as active imagination, dreamwork, and ritual, the conscious ego is opened up to a broader level of consciousness as more and more unconscious knowledge comes up into the light of day, as it were, and becomes integrated into conscious awareness. This is what is meant by the idea of wholeness.

These dynamic psychological phenomena are experienced in personal life through the advent of our creative and emotional lives. It is as if we become aware of other persons, emotional beings, exerting an autonomous influence over us in the form of strange, inexplicable moods, sudden flashes of rage or sadness, melancholic ideas about the past or future, and creative abilities such as fluency with writing or painting or dance. But perhaps the most ubiquitous experience of the symbolic output of the psyche takes place each night when we enter the world of dreams. Dreams and their counterparts, myths, fairy tales, and poetry are essentially the symbolic language of the psyche writ large. It is through meaningful dialogue with this language and its speakers that we enlarge and expand the otherwise limited realm of consciousness. The images enrich our lives with meaning, endowing us with secret knowledge from beyond the limited human realm, which brings with it the numinous power of renewal, regeneration, and the fecundity inherent in transpersonal nature.

The Relationship Between Instinct and Spirit

In his investigations into the nature of archetypal phenomena, Jung needed to distinguish between instinctual behavioral patterns such as those we share with animals, and psychological patterns that appear to be only psychic. To this end he devised a model that put the total psyche, conscious and unconscious, on a scale with two opposite poles—on one end there is the purely physiological realm of instinct, on the other, the purely psychic, or spiritual, realm of archetypes. Consciousness can slide between these two extremes, taking on the qualities of one or the other. When consciousness has merged with the purely instinctual pole—the pole which Jung designates with the color infrared—an individual can be overcome by passions of the body such as overeating or pathological sexual drives. In the other extreme, when consciousness has merged with the purely spiritual (archetypal) pole—designated by the color ultraviolet—an individual may be persuaded that they are the lord savior or remain possessed by some other fanatical form of spiritual conviction. Jung believed that while spirit and instinct are polar opposites, they nevertheless exist together in a symbiotic and fruitful form of correspondence which, through tension producing dynamics in the psyche, generate the psychic energy needed for life, a dynamic Jung identified as the transcendent function. Spirit and instinct are thus contaminated with one another and are correlates that, in a sense, connect psyche with matter. Jacobi helpfully compares an archetype to the psychic aspect of brain structure and explains that instinct determines and regulates biological functioning while archetype determines and regulates psychological functioning. At either extreme end of the spectrum, there is the psychoid realm, which is a transpersonal dimension beyond the matter/psyche duality where archetypes as spiritual, nonorganic entities connect with physiological instincts and essentially become the same thing, thereby enacting the well-known alchemical image of an uroboros.

As the real potential for civil war and the collapse of global civilization lurches ever closer, few are raising the alarm about the larger danger of online technology products that are entirely swallowing our collective human consciousness. Because while humans across the world tear themselves (and each other) apart chasing answers to legitimate questions of unbearable inequity, a fast-rising machine intelligence is rapidly colonizing the human psyche on a global scale and directing its movements like a sinister puppet-master.

As with other technological advancements of modern times, artificial intelligence is weaponized and placed in the service of profit-making, single-mindedly attuned to an “economic orientation,” as Max Weber calls it, which disregards the psychological well-being of the population it relies upon for its success. Shoshana Zuboff, in her new book The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism (2019), explains how this modern process of digital colonization unfolds. Funded by royal coffers, ships filled with white men believing in their God-given superiority sail across the world, landing on virgin territories they would then cruelly exploit regardless of what the local inhabitants had to say about it. In fact, the astonished indigenous folk was usually slaughtered. Today, Zuboff explains, it is we humans and our futures that represent virgin territory being harvested and exploited against our will and without our knowledge. Social media and online tech giants (ships filled with white men funded by royal coffers) such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter, to name only a few, employ a business model which aims to keep us online and religiously focused on their digital products for as long as possible. Nonstop rings, bells, emails, and tags, together with a variety of ego-enticements such as likes, hearts, and redundant vacuous smiley-face emojis are rained down upon us all day long, pushed on us by the many algorithms whose job it is to keep us engaged in a never-ending mutually infectious cycle like rats in a maze. This is why we are called “users,” because we are addicts in need of this fix, i.e., the instant gratification of our every infantile whim which is gleefully supplied by the “free” digital products in whose destructive clutches we are ensnared.

While psychologically enshrouded in this zombie-like love affair with digital death, our attention—what Zuboff calls the “raw material” of psychic life that we freely surrender to these neo-colonialists—is collected, stored, analyzed, and molded into predictive models that can determine precisely what we will think, feel, say, or do from moment to moment on any given day, week, or month. Everything we do online is gathered and stored in a personal profile which is measured by a system called the O.C.E.A.N. Model: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticisms. For each of these categories, a percentage is calculated and a precise model of our personality is generated that can predict how we will behave in the future. This predictability of behavior based upon unfathomable oceans of data allows advertisers to pinpoint and target their ads for maximum effectiveness. This data about us, our future behaviors, and the market value of our engaged attention measured in impressions per second is sold at auction, to the highest advertising bidder, twenty-four hours a day.

Thus, by gently nudging us with notifications and prompts, the algorithms slowly and imperceptibly alter the natural course of our decision-making processes so that we are moving in specifically targeted directions of consumption without ever becoming aware that we are doing so. Indeed, Zuboff heavily emphasizes this fact—that we are completely clueless about the degree to which we are being influenced to behave in certain specific ways. We can therefore begin to see how precise behavioral prediction models can start to function in our lives as a fait accompli so that machines already know what we will do tomorrow, next week, or next month. Consider that this information about us is sold to advertisers who use it to manipulate our behavior even further. The devastating implications for personal autonomy and free will seem clear—we have none.

As it happens, the fragile human psyche already has enough on its plate without being viciously exploited and manipulated by powerful digital machines. As C. G. Jung (1989) has explained, the immature psyche is teeming with clusters of feeling-toned images that dominate and control the ego with impunity. For growth and a sense of fulfillment to dawn upon us, these unruly complexes must be identified, recognized, and eventually reintegrated into the total psychic economy. In this individuation process, the ego needs to grow strong over time by repeatedly enduring the tension produced when conscious and unconscious imperatives inevitably clash. These tests of endurance lead to real wisdom which helps the ego find its true home orbiting the numinous sphere of the archetype of the Self. Until this deeper organization of consciousness is achieved, an individual is besieged by a barrage of attacks and demands from the as-yet uncivilized shadow complexes. And this is precisely the unstable psychological territory that social media and other digital systems colonize and exploit.

The online world offers an alternative to the complex reality of the psyche, functioning as a digital psychic pacifier that effectively kills the individuation process by helping us escape our shadow emotions. Indeed, this digital landscape appears to behave as a second collective unconscious, but one that is devoid of any benefits and quite insidious, infectious, predatory, and more directly involved in generating immediate action in its host consciousness than anyone is aware. I have often observed people staring at their cell phones captured by the dark spell of the “infinite scroll” and imagined a sort of immaterial predator effectively violating the individual’s consciousness through their third eye. It is almost as if the ever-expanding human shadow has undergone a metamorphosis into computer code which then seeps back into us while we stare at our screens.

Just as regular corporations abuse and pillage the planet, digital corporations abuse and pillage the human psyche. Corporate advertisements have been brutally exploiting our insecurities for decades but with the advent of surveillance capitalism, they now have the power to shape behavior on a mass scale, globally. Their algorithms are eating us alive which is why, for me, any genuine resistance movement must begin with a psychic rescue mission—an addiction intervention—on an individual level. It does not seem viable to believe that we can be truly free, out there, in the world, while inwardly we are unconsciously infected with these “flesh-eating” machine viruses, no matter how many protests or rallies we attend. I would therefore argue that against this economically motivated digital assault on psychic freedom, an economy-based technology of liberation must be mobilized. This is probably why activists say that the deletion of our social media accounts is a good place to start the rebellion. But to do that one must be strong enough to overcome an addiction. For that is what social media usage is—an addiction, and calling it what it actually is is another good place to begin a revolt against this insidious and unjust war on human freedom.

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Zuboff, S. (2019). The rise of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group.