What attracts this woman and man to each other? According to Jung, these two have
projected their anima and animus onto the partner and have apparently found a good fit.
Evidence for the Collective Unconscious
One criticism sometimes directed at Jung’ s ideas is that his theory is difficult
to examine with scientific research. But Jung did not create his ideas out of
sheer fantasy. Rather, through a lifelong study of modern and ancient cul-tures, and through his career as a psychotherapist, Jung arrived at what was
for him indisputable evidence for the collective unconscious and the other
constructs in his theory.
However, Jung ’s evidence does not consist of hard data from rigorous
laboratory experiments. Instead, he examined mythology, cultural symbols,dreams, and the statements of schizophrenics. Jung argued that if the collec-tive unconscious is basically the same for each of us, then primordial images
should be found in some form in all cultures and across time. He maintained
that primordial images are often expressed in dreams. But they also serve assymbols in art, folklore, and mythology. People suffering from hallucinations
are said to describe archetype-based images.
As evidence for the collective unconscious, Jung points to the recurrence
of certain images and symbols in all of these sources. Why does a symbol
like a vulture appear in the dreams of people today in the same basic way it
appears in religious writings and ancient mythologies of cultures unknown to
the dreamer? Jung described an early discovery of this type of evidence when
he spoke with a mental patient suffering from a type of schizophrenia:
One day I came across him there, blinking through the window up at the sun,
and moving his head from side to side in a curious manner. He took me by theCarl Jung 103