Simulacra — from the Latin for likeness, image, or copy — occupies a quietly pivotal place in the depth-psychological corpus, functioning simultaneously as a technical term from ancient atomism, a Platonic ontological category, and a phenomenological marker for the relationship between archetype and earthly instantiation. Von Franz draws most explicitly on the Democritean usage, treating simulacra as image-atoms — the basic perceptual and psychic units that bridge physical inheritance and archetypal representation, a problem she regards as still unresolved. Jung, working in the spirit of the fairytale, deploys the term cosmologically: earthly figures are simulacra of divine prototypes, a hierarchy of ontological copies descending from gods through half-gods to mortal appearances. Victor Turner imports a sociological inflection, characterizing liminal ritual structures as ‘simulacral,’ fantastic and non-real yet experientially efficacious. Plato’s Sophist and Republic establish the philosophical ground for all subsequent usage — the image-making arts produce likenesses thrice removed from truth, and the sophist himself is a manufacturer of simulacra. The tension running through the corpus is between simulacra as degraded copies (Platonic) and simulacra as genuine psychic mediators carrying irreducible numinosity (Jungian-alchemical). This distinction — whether the copy participates in or merely apes its archetype — remains the productive fault line.
how the elements of the pattern of behavior relate to the genes, we are still stuck at the same problem as Democritos, namely how do the images, the simulacra, relate to the atoms?
Von Franz identifies simulacra as the Democritean forerunner of archetypal representations, positing that the unresolved link between simulacra and atoms mirrors the modern problem of psyche-matter correspondence.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
the swineherd and Princess A are nothing less than earthly simulacra of Prince and Princess B, who in their turn would be the descendants of divine prototypes.
Jung deploys simulacra as a cosmological term designating the ontological hierarchy in which mundane figures are copies of divine archetypes, structuring the fairytale’s drama as a descent of prototypes into earthly instantiation.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959thesis
structural underlings may well seek, in their liminality, deeper involvement in a structure that, though fantastic and simulacra1 only, nevertheless enables them to experience for a legitimated while a different kind of ‘release’
Turner characterizes the inverted social structures of liminal ritual as simulacral — fantastical copies of real hierarchy that nonetheless produce genuine experiential release and reinforce social structure.
, The Ritual Process Structure and Anti-Structure, 1966supporting
there are images of them, which are not them, but which correspond to them; and these are also the creation of a wonderful skill.
Plato establishes the foundational ontological distinction between originals and their images, positioning simulacra as products of divine and human skill that correspond to but are not identical with their originals.
, Sophist, -360supporting
has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?
Plato’s Republic articulates the devaluation of the image as triply removed from truth, establishing the epistemological ground upon which all subsequent uses of simulacra as deficient copies are built.
, Republic, -380supporting
fana multa spohata et simulacra deorum de locis sanctissimis ablata vidimus, a nostris
Cicero employs simulacra in its cultic-material sense — cult images of the gods removed from sacred sites — illustrating the ancient conflation of divine representation with the sacred itself.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
atomos inane imagines, infinitatem locorum innumerabilitatemque mundorum, eorum ortus interitus, omnia fere quibus naturae ratio continetur.
Cicero summarizes Epicurean-Democritean physics, linking atoms, void, and images (imagines/simulacra) as the constituents of the natural order, the philosophical context von Franz later invokes for her psychological argument.
, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
we ought as soon as possible to divide the image-making art, and go down into the net, and, if the Sophist does not run away from us, to seize him
Plato’s Stranger pursues the sophist as a producer of false images, making the division of the image-making art the method by which simulacral deception is exposed and classified.
, Sophist, -360supporting
does not art therefore naturally represent for him only a shadow of that shadow, a copy of a copy?
Rank articulates the Platonic devaluation of art as doubly derivative — a simulacrum of a simulacrum — while acknowledging the possibility that such copies might nonetheless catch something of the original Idea.
, Art and Artist: Creative Urge and Personality Development, 1932supporting
the very opposite evaluation of dream holds true for that mysterious ground of our being of which we are an appearance (Erscheinung)
Nietzsche gestures toward a metaphysics of appearance in which waking life is itself simulacral — an image or Erscheinung of a deeper reality — anticipating the depth-psychological treatment of the ego as derivative.
, The Birth of Tragedy, 1872aside