Elementargedanken

Adolf Bastian’s theory of the ethnic ‘Elementary Ideas,’ which, in their primal psychic character (corresponding to the Stoic Logoi spermatikoi), should be regarded as ‘the spiritual (or psychic) germinal dispositions out of which the whole social structure has been developed organically’

Campbell directly cites Bastian’s 1895 formulation of Elementargedanken, identifying them as psychic germinal dispositions homologous to the Stoic logoi spermatikoi and to Jung’s archetypes, and establishing them as the inductive foundation of cross-cultural mythological research.

Campbell, Joseph, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015thesis

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Another scholar, Adolf Bastian,

Von Franz situates Bastian within a nineteenth-century lineage of scholars who sought to derive recurring folktale motifs from universal psychic experience, positioning him as a forerunner to the Jungian archetypal approach to fairy tales.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, 1970supporting

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Bastian, Adolf, 11, 13, 19, 31, 80, 99, 109

The repeated indexing of Bastian across multiple chapters of Campbell’s work demonstrates that the Elementargedanken concept functions as a structural premise throughout his comparative mythological argument.

Campbell, Joseph, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion, 1986supporting

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a symbol releasing energy in terms of a collective image. Those chickens never experienced a hawk before, yet they responded to it… what Jung calls an archetype

Campbell’s explanation of the archetype as a collectively inherited ‘lock-key’ response pattern implicitly rehearses the logic of Bastian’s Elementargedanken — universal psychic dispositions that precede individual experience.

Campbell, Joseph, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, 2004supporting

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