Aras: archetypal symbolism and images thomas singer .pdf download

Enter the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism , or ARAS, a collection of tens of thousands of meticulously annotated images, drawn from different cultures, geographic regions, and historical periods. For the last 20 years, Singer has been a tireless proponent for the archive, helping to bring it into the digital age and encouraging new uses for its contents. He currently serves as chairman of the ARAS national board. Six volumes of selected Eranos lectures, translated into English and edited by Joseph Campbell, were published in as part of the Bollingen Series.

The subject of the first two-week Eranos conference in was "Yoga and Meditation in East and West," held in the lecture hall now named "Casa Eranos. Jung remained a fundamental figure in the organization of the conferences due to the fertile influence of his analytical psychology-referred to as a "spiritus rector" by Eliade in Althoughthe symposia were not "Jungian," they focused on the core idea of "archetypes" in human life.

Despite the difficulties of the pre-war years, the Eranos conferences took place without interruption. Planning for next year's conference would begin as soon as one year's conference was over. She decided the theme, invited the speakers, organized the announcements and printing of programs, booked accommodations, planned catered lunches and dinners, made traffic arrangements with local authorities.

A conference typically included anywhere from seven to twelve half-day lectures, delivered in German, French or English, and attended by up to two hundred persons. The afternoons were open for informal discussions, sailing on the lake, excursions in the area or reading. An equal representation of first-time speakers and speakers with previous Eranos experience assured renewal and continuity through the years.

She later explained that "Those who feel the truth of the old Chinese conception that all that happens in the visible world is the expression of ideas or images in the invisible might do well to consider Eranos from that point of view. These she classified according to archetypal themes in what became known as the "Eranos Archive," located for want of other space in her bedroom at Casa Gabriella.

Figures 5, 6 and 7 show expressions of the Great Mother archetype from three different cultures and time periods. She learned of the Warburg Institute - moved in to London from Hamburg because of the Nazi danger - and its library, which seemed a good fit for her collection.

After the war, in , she began to send her photographs to London, and in the Warburg Institute accepted her entire collection. Fraser, Librarian of the Analytical Psychology Club in New York, was entrusted with editing and cataloging the archive.

In , her proposal for a cataloging scheme found support with members of the Eranos Conference, and the Bollingen Foundation decided to make the archive a special project and increase their grant. In the development of keywords to reflect archetypal themes, Jessie Fraser collaborated with analytical psychologist Joseph L. Wickes Foundation. The archive grew and had, in , reached 25, representations, of which 12, were mounted, numbered and in various stages of completion and 8, finished.

The Bingham Foundation and many other donors were instrumental in supporting the continued expansion of the collection in the s, and also made possible the writing and publication of two scholarly volumes, Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism I-II , based on approximately selected images from ARAS. In , the New York collection of 17, images and 20, text commentaries was scanned.

About 45, catalog cards from the New York and San Francisco collections, which had continued its own further development since the early s, were combined to produce 10, different keyword-based archetypal themes. Private donors funded this large project that ultimately resulted in ARAS becoming available as an online subscription-based resource www.

Although the creation of the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism was motivated by Jung's discovery and description of the "archetype," the use of ARAS goes well beyond Jungian psychology. However, ARAS owes a tremendous debt to Jung's basic idea of archetypes and the collective unconscious. Jung was the particular proponent of a broadly archetypal point of view that insists upon common human or transpersonal and symbolic connections transcending cultural and theological boundaries.

One might argue that from an iconographic classification point of view Jung's concepts have created the essential foundation for the nomenclature developed to categorize the ARAS image content.

The term "archetype" means "original pattern from which copies are made," and it appeared in European texts as early as Anthony Stevens explains how Jung acknowledged his debt to Plato, describing archetypes as "active living dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that perform and continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions" CW 8: They were collective in the sense that they embody the general characteristics of groups of individuals rather than the specific peculiarities of one.

Thus, a particular dog has qualities in common with all dogs which enable us to classify it as a dog as well as peculiarities of its own which would enable its master to recognize it. So it is with the archetypes: they are common to all humankind, yet each person experiences them in a unique and personal way. You can connect your friends and colleagues to ARAS Connections by encouraging them to subscribe for free by simply sending their email address to Connectedly yours, Tom Singer.

They were originally presented at the third Art and Psyche conference held in Sicily, In this paper I will deal with creativity and the creative process. I will not discuss the causes, or the origin of creativity, but I will try to share some reflections on one of the possible ways the creative process unfolds.

I would like to start my thoughts from three universally known Greek maxims. This maxim is very intimately related to this article, as it indicates how one may know himself: by becoming himself, or, in other terms: by matching himself with himself in the most crucial coniunctio that I can think of. If, as it is obvious, it is possible to write about creativity as something happening to and through someone else, discussing it - so to say - in the third person , it is also possible to do it in the first person.

In this joining, it can, to some degree, be worked and translated into living, material reality, whether through word, image, other expressive means, or through lived life itself. I will explore the concept of the spiracle in alchemy and in relation to the creative process, as exemplified in the work of the artist Cy Twombly, who moved back and forth between Lexington, Virginia and his adopted Southern Italy.

In the studio, the inspiration of the artist, along with the tools, materials and medium, all co-create the protected space in which this passage and translation between worlds can take place.