The Collective Unconscious
Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology.
Jung was a younger contemporary of Sigmund Freud. Whereas Freud saw psychology as being about personal experience, Jung envisioned a larger world view where the significance of dreams, symbols, insights, literature, visions, and intution were transcendent and non-personal, emanating from the Collective Unconscious—the racial memory of humanity since the dawn of time—that is also the source of great art—divine fire.
He revealed the importance of understanding synchronicity that explained all events are related, even if we don’t yet see the causal relationship. Jung also delved into the power of intuition and how to better access this infallible source of information that radiates from the Unconscious.
“There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of the creative fire. It is as though each of us were endowed at birth with a certain capital of energy.”
—Carl Jung
Where do great art, innovation, and groundbreaking ideas come from?