The Archetypal Female in Mythology and Religion: The Anima and the Mother of the Earth and Sky

Abstract

For decades, Carl Gustav Jung treated many thousands of patients and explored many of the world’s mythologies and religions. His empirical and scholarly research led him to conclude that all humanity shares an instinct to produce images and concepts based on universal themes. These themes he termed archetypes, and the commonly shared instinct he called the Collective Unconscious. Of these many themes, two female archetypes, the anima and the mother, are explored in this two-part discussion. Part 1 (Relke, 2007) appeared in the last issue of Europe’s Journal of Psychology, and Part 2 appears below.