The Continuity of Human Thought by Caitlin

The Continuity of Human Thought by Caitlin - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

The last day of psychology class ended generous Mr. Sopko decided to surprise us with a new lesson- archetypes. Archetypes were "discovered" by Carl Gustav Jung, a prominent student of Freud. Jung found that throughout all human history, the same ideas and characters were expressed in stories throughout the world; while the stories were different, the archetypes, like Hero, Child, and Mother remained. Furthermore, Jung's study found all people contained unconcious knowledge of the archetypes, mostly expressed through their dreams, and a certain few through the person's persona. The "discovery" of archetypes didn't stop at recognizing similarities; this theory also added more substance to the Universal Conciousness theory: all humanity is subconciously connected.This lesson was a revelation for me. While initially in disbelief, I recalled all the stories I had read and people I met- all proving the archetype theory! While uniquely themselves, all these people and characters represented or carried Jung's archetypes. The Universal Conciousness theory also began to make more sense, as the archetypes were all supplanted into the human mind, giving us shared experiences and ideas. Everything suddenly clicked. Humanity, for be, became much more understandable.