Hi. I'm new to this tribe and I joined because I am ignorant about the archetypes and would like to learn more.
Is "The Twins" a proper Jungian archetype? What are they associated with? Are they usually same sex twins, or can the twins be male and female as well?
Is "The Twins" a proper Jungian archetype? What are they associated with? Are they usually same sex twins, or can the twins be male and female as well?
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Hawaii
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Re: The Twins
Sat, February 24, 2007 - 9:30 AMI am not knowledgable enough to say if twins, as such, are the expression of an archetype, but they are certainely an important and universal symbol.
They generally represent opposites : good and evil, wisdom and ignorance, etc…
- Aztec gods Quetzacoatl (birth, light, resurection) and Tezcatlipoca (death, darkness).
-Greek heroes Castor (mortal) and Pollux (immortal)
They are also present in many creation myths :
- Prometheus and Epimetheus -not sure if they were twins or just brothers- are to a certain extent the creators of Mankind in greek mythology.
-Romulus and Remus : Foundation of Rome.
Twins are also present in the Zodiac : Gemini of course, but Pisces as well.
(Pisces may represent the opposition between consciouness and unconsciousness)
You see that we are dealing with a very rich symbol.
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Re: The Twins
Sun, February 25, 2007 - 9:28 AMpart of the reason I'm interested is that I myself am a Gemini. : )
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Re: The Twins
Sun, February 25, 2007 - 10:16 AMThis is second hand information, and I don't have time to check my sources, but I heard that Twins might be a archetypal explanation for homo-sexuality; isn't there a thread in here about it???
Anam Cara -
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Re: The Twins
Mon, February 26, 2007 - 1:53 AMIn the Mythic Tarot there is the Knight of Swords - The Dioscuri - Identical Twins representing "the flexible, volatile and changeable dimension of the element of air, which is constantly in motion". As mentioned also called Castor and Polydueces ....
They are "images of an abrupt and mercurial energy, the capacity of the human mind to be suddenly inspired or takenover by a new idea which throws the old order into chaos and leaves changes in its wake".................. -
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Re: The Twins
Wed, February 28, 2007 - 9:01 AMIn middle ages astrology Saturn was referred to as Mercurius Senex, Old Mercury. This provides a hint to the quality of twins.
Where the Saturnian is structural, the Mercurial is connective, a thin tissue, nervous, mental.
I recommend googling (googling is a prime geminian activity!) some images of the draftsman Escher. Escher's work is iterative and delicately methodical and mathematical, and it would be quite "Taurean" and down to earth if it were not for the overall message of the images, which is beautifully drawn out by Hofstadter in his books "Godel Escher Bach - The Eternal Golden Braid".
The twin refer to the emergence of meaningful perceptions out of the chaos of an unknoweable reality. In the Castor and Pollux mythos the earthly twin longs for the heavenly abstraction of his brother, while the divine brother wishes for the substantial character of his mortal twin. Thus the eternal and the ephemeral are bound up together in the process of generating Mercurial perceptions. And thus also youthful perceptions (Mercurius Juvens) gradually become older, solid and Saturnian (Mercurius Senex), and become the practical meaning and values within which we are individuated.
A recent movie, Pan's Labyrinth, represents the twin archetype quite poetically. You might enjoy it! -
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Re: The Twins
Sat, March 3, 2007 - 7:46 PMThanks! Lots of food for thought....mmmm, thinking's fun....and I just added Pan's Labyrinth to my queue- someone else mentioned it the other day, so it must be calling to me.
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