The Seba library treats Comparative Anatomy Of The Psyche in 9 passages, across 4 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Stein, Murray, Jung, C.G.).
Just as the biologist needs the science of comparative anatomy, however, the psychologist cannot do without a ‘comparative anatomy of the psyche.’
Jung’s canonical formulation equates the psychologist’s need for myth and cross-cultural symbol knowledge with the biologist’s dependence on comparative anatomy, making the analogy the methodological cornerstone of depth-psychological practice.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964thesis
Jung speaks in this letter also of a ‘comparative anatomy of the mind,’ which would be achieved by pooling expertise from many fields of research and study.
Stein documents Jung’s epistolary articulation of the concept as a collaborative, interdisciplinary scientific project aimed at a synoptic overview of the psyche and its universal structures.
, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998thesis
An analogy exists in comparative anatomy. An animal’s organ seems unintelligible from a purely morphological point of view, but as soon as we view it with the help of comparative anatomy, that organ is seen in context and is full of meaning.
Jung directly maps the logic of comparative anatomy onto dream interpretation, arguing that mythologies, sagas, and religions function as the ancillary sciences that render isolated psychic motifs intelligible through contextual comparison.
, Dream Interpretation Ancient and Modern: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1941, 2014thesis
For this a great deal of comparative material is needed, and it cannot be dispensed with any more than in comparative anatomy.
Jung grounds his demand for broad comparative material—prerequisite to understanding the unconscious—in the same epistemic necessity that makes comparative anatomy indispensable to biological science.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
His biological training has left him with far too strong an impression of the comparability of all human activities for him to make any particular to-do about the similarity, indeed the fundamental sameness, of human beings and their psychic manifestations.
Jung argues that the physician’s biological formation—rooted in the comparative logic of anatomy—naturally prepares one to recognize the structural sameness of psychic contents across historical periods and cultures.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting
The facts and relationships unearthed by the analysis of the unconscious offer so many parallels to the phenomenology of myths, for example, that their psychological elucidation may also shed light on the mythological figures and their symbols.
Jung acknowledges the reciprocal illumination between unconscious analysis and comparative mythology, demonstrating in practice the cross-disciplinary collaboration his comparative-anatomical method demands.
, Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976supporting
It would be positively grotesque to call this immense system of experience in the unconscious psyche an illusion, for our visible and tangible body is itself just such a system.
Jung draws an ontological parallel between the body as a sedimented evolutionary system and the collective unconscious, reinforcing the anatomical metaphor by asserting that psychic structures possess the same reality as physical ones.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting
Although the variations of individual images can be almost infinite, nonetheless psychic images all derive from a quite limited number of uniform recurrent patterns. These are what we call the archetypes.
Edinger articulates the structural premise underlying Jung’s comparative-anatomical method: infinite surface variation conceals a finite set of deep archetypal patterns, the discovery of which requires comparative cross-cultural study.
, The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995supporting
My views about the ‘archaic remnants,’ which I call ‘archetypes’ or ‘primordial images,’ have been constantly criticized by people who lack a sufficient knowledge of the psychology of dreams and of mythology.
Jung identifies inadequate comparative knowledge as the root cause of misunderstanding the archetype concept, implicitly defending the necessity of the comparative-anatomical method against uninformed criticism.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964aside