The Wandering Archetype: C. G. Jung's "Wotan" and Germanic-Aryan Myth and Ideology

Download or read book The Wandering Archetype: C. G. Jung's "Wotan" and Germanic-Aryan Myth and Ideology written by Carrie Beth Dohe and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dissertation explores how Jung fashioned his image of an inherited collective Germanic psyche by combining these various discursive threads with the spirituality of self-redemption (Selbsterlösung). This new form of religiosity, promulgated by a wide range of German-cultural artists, writers, and religious thinkers, was rooted in the Protestant belief of an inward calling by God, yet secularized under the impact of Nietzschean philosophy and combined with German völkisch ideology to become a source of self-definition and new spirituality in the broader German-cultural realm. The dissertation follows the permutations in Jung's image of "Wotan the Wanderer," from the god's first appearance in Jung's writings in 1912 through the posthumously published Memories, Dreams, Reflections , to demonstrate how Jung used Wotan to create a profile of a collective Germanic psyche that he believed was most capable of generating out of its depths the necessary spiritual solution to the malaise of modern society. The dissertation concludes with an examination of the employment of Jung's theory of inherited archetypes and a Germanic-Aryan collective unconscious within significant segments of the contemporary Germanic religious revival known as Heathenism or Ásatrú.