The Archetype of Rebirth & C.G. Jung

Archetypes populate the collective unconscious as universal patterns that structure experience from physiological instincts to the spiritual realm (Jung, 1954/1969, p. 212).

Archetypes are only known through inference as images; and these images are evidenced in myth, art, and psychological experiences since the archetype, itself, cannot be known directly due to its energetic power (Jung, 1954/1969, p. 226). Rebirth is one archetypal pattern that Jung observed in myth and psychological experience, which he differentiated into five forms. The fourth form of rebirth Jung (1950/1968) described is a renewal of personality and transformation of the individual within a single lifespan (p. 114). This form of rebirth, as distinguished from reincarnation or resurrection, is a psychological initiation that Jung termed “individuation” in which, to put it briefly, unconscious contents are brought into conscious relationship with the ego, and the ego realizes its place within the Self archetype as a result of descending through the “tight passage” (Jung, 1954/1968, p. 21) of the shadow (K. LeGrice, personal communication, June 1, 2017). Being in contact with the Self transforms what was psychologically modest into something powerful, “This ‘other being’ is the other person in ourselves—that larger and greater personality maturing within us” (Jung, 1950/1968, p. 131). Rebirth is transformation through differentiating the personality and being in contact with the Self (along with other contents of the unconscious) rather than consumed by it.

Rebirth in Myth and Religion

The pattern of rebirth is found in the Sumerian myth of Inanna’s descent and resurrection. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, descends to pay her condolences to her sister of the underworld, Ereshkigal, following the death of Ereshkigal’s husband. A summary is as follows according to Silvia Brinton Perera’s interpretation (1981):

Inanna descends, making sacrifices of her vestments as she faces the seven gates of the underworld. Eventually Inanna is naked and surrendered, facing her sister. Ereshkigal then completes Inanna’s sacrifice by murdering and hanging her on a meat hook. Yet Inanna has allies in the upper world who plead to the gods and goddesses for help in finding Inanna. Enki offers dirt from under his fingernails who become two beings, “little mourners,” capable of slipping through the passages of the underworld carrying water and food of life. These beings enter the underworld and wail with Ereshkigal until she is satiated. She then gives Inanna’s body to them and they restore her to life. When Inanna returns to the upper world, her husband and sister are sent in her wake to the underworld.

Imagining into Inanna, a sense of ultimate sacrifice and transformation emerges. Sacrifices, in the form of her regalia and life, are made so that Inanna can be reborn as an initiated goddess. Psychologically, this disrobing can be imagined as de-potentiating the conscious personality—a surrender of what is familiar through an encounter with the unconscious that can occur in several ways including realizing the god in a complex or confronting a shadow aspect that disrupts normal functioning. Perera (1981) described Inanna’s sacrifice which leads to her rebirth as a necessary “return to the dark, unacceptable feminine goddess” in order to be “reborn in an inner process and connected to the full range of feminine instinctual patterns” (p. 56). Inanna is changed as a result of her descent—not only has she encountered the power of Ereshkigal, but she returns to the upperworld with demons that require someone else take her place in the underworld. This image of demons demanding an exchange can be viewed psychologically as an opening of the ego-Self axis—an on-going relationship with the underworld has been forged as a result of sacrifice, death, and rebirth.

Another common image in the pattern of rebirth is that the humblest substance transforms into a life-giving substance (Jung, 1950/1968, p. 141). In this case, the dirt from Enki’s fingernails becomes Inanna’s renewed life force. Jung (1950/1968) described this motif in rebirth, “The immortal being issues from something humble and forgotten, indeed from a wholly improbable source” (p. 141). While Inanna, herself, is reborn, the transformation hinges upon Enki’s fingernail dirt to be completed. Another religious story where this pattern lives is in the birth of Jesus—the Christ child born in a lowly manger is an image of an immortal being coming through the most modest of origins. Additionally, it is the philosopher’s stone in alchemy, which allows for common substances to turn into gold. Jung (1950/1968) viewed these images of rebirth from what is forgotten and meek as pointing to how it is the unconscious which gives consciousness energy and life—it is the “treasure that lies hidden in the cave of the of the unconscious” that is recovered in these myths (p. 142).

Rebirth in Music

Moving from the mythic to the popular, rebirth emerges in Beyoncé’s 2016 video album, Lemonade (Carter, et al. & Carter, et al. 2016). In this hour-long video, the viewer is taken on a journey through descent and rebirth, ripe with cultural allusions to the slave trade, police brutality, and contemporary Black feminist issues. Lemonade can be viewed as a woman’s confrontation with and survival of her husband’s infidelity, yet this pivotal life experience echoes with a rebirth archetypal pattern evoked through poetry, visual image, and music.

 “Forgiveness” is one particular chapter that highlights rebirth. This chapter follows scenes showing the singer engulfed in water in a dream-like state, smashing cars with baseball bats, sitting vigil in a ring of fire in basements, and praying in a kind of baptismal experience. “Forgiveness” shows the result of Beyoncé’s descent into the psychological underworld. It begins with an image of a baby on a bed, gently cooing. This is immediately followed by a poem articulating a dream image of giving birth by the British-Somali poet, Warshan Shire, “I wake as the second girl crawls head-first up my throat, a flower blossoming out of the hole of my face” (Carter, et al. & Carter, et al. 2016). We see the singer and another woman looking up to a light-filled opening in the ceiling of a dark brick room. The video moves to images of black women above ground sitting on the limbs of a huge and ancient oak tree.

New life is born from psychological descent, as evoked throughout the video in images of going underground, and eventually we see a literal baby, a suggestion that transformation has occurred and new life has (literally) been born. Additionally, images of women sitting in trees offer a sense that life continues through ancestral bloodlines and from the most unlikely sources. The pattern of rebirth is reinforced through spoken poetry, “Grandmother, the alchemist, you spun gold out of this hard life, conjured beauty from the things left behind, found healing where it did not live...” (Carter, et al. & Carter, et al. 2016). These words resonate with Jung’s understanding that rebirth is a psychologically alchemical experience—healing and transformation occur through the singer’s fall into rage, confusion, and pain. New life and a sense of immortality, as imagined in the wide-limbed trees and generations of surviving women, is the result. The alteration that occurs is, as this chapter of Lemonade brings forward, bigger, more life-filled, and powerful than was previously known. In Jungian terms, this is the ego complex coming to know its place within the unconscious, specifically the Self.

Rebirth in Contemporary Culture

            Rebirth as an archetypal pattern is relevant to contemporary culture in the form of the social movement, Me Too, in which women are speaking about experiences of sexual assault. The image in the rebirth pattern in which the humble substance transforms, through the process of tension and pressure, into an immortal substance can be seen metaphorically in this cultural transformation. The words “me too” are attributed to Tarana Burke, an activist, who said that after hearing a 13-year-old describe her own sexual assault, she wished she had replied simply, “Me too” (Garcia, 2017). The Me Too movement was born from this experience. Ms. Burke’s original movement gained little traction until white women spoke out about their experiences, revealing painful racial realities. Yet, despite these important tensions, Me Too offers images of cultural rebirth.

First, the most simple words, “Me too” are the bearers of transformation. Similar to the dirt-born “little mourners” who simply wail with Ereshkigal, the words “me too” carry empathy and energy that transforms grief into life. The modesty of these words is part of their power, transforming experiences of shame and secrecy into shared experience and community. New life emerges out of the simplicity of being heard and echoed. These words as the base of this movement have allowed what was hidden and refused to come into public view. “Me too” alchemizes shame into acceptance, and isolation into connection. Second, the stories that have gone unheard and unspoken now carry import and weight—an entire movement was finally born from a 13-year-old girl’s story. Women and girls’ stories are birthing a cultural awakening and moment—voices that were systematically buried are coming through with legal and political power. Those who are most humble and historically disempowered are emerging with a story, a voice, and, to some, are vital parts of necessary cultural change. Rebirth is pertinent here as a pattern of cultural transformation—power is changing hands, stories that caused ridicule are holding sway, and large-group acknowledgment of sexual assault is moving out of hotel rooms and into the public sphere. What was previously accepted and familiar is being de-centered for the sake of what has been held psychologically and culturally underground.

REFERENCES

Carter, B. K., Anyanwu, O., Lia, J., Flynn, K., Scherrer, N., Horsan, S., . . . Burke, E. (Producers), & Carter, B. K., Joseph, K., Matsoukas, M., Rimmasch, D., Romanek, M., Tourso, T., & Akerlund, J. (Directors), (2016). Lemonade [Motion picture]. United States: Parkwood Entertainment.

Garcia, S. E. (2017, October 20). The woman who created #metoo long before hastags. New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html

Jung, C. G. (1968). Archetypes of the collective unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 9 pt. 1, 2nd ed., pp. 3-41). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1954)

Jung, C. G. (1968). Concerning rebirth (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 9 pt. 1, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1950)

Jung, C. G. (1969). On the nature of the psyche (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1954)

Perera, S. (1981). Descent to the goddess: A way of initiation for women. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.