Jungian Collective Unconsciousness and Berserk

I remember reading about Jung in college, but it didn't strike me until today that Collective Unconsciousness may have been an influence on Miura for the creation of the Idea of Evil.

Collective Unconsciousness - 19th Century Psychologist Carl Jung's theory that humanity shares unconscious desires, carried over in the forms of archetypes "...from shared instinct, common experience, and shared culture. The natural process of generalization in the human mind combines these common traits and experiences into a mostly identical substratum of the unconscious," (Wiki entry).

"[Collective Unsconsciousness] directs the self, via archetypes, dreams, intuition... to self-actualization."

This seems similar, at least superficially, to the way in which the Idea of Evil manifests its control on humanity. In episode 83, it also mentions the concept nearly verbatim:


Am I off my rocker, or did I strike gold?

It could have been, it's similar to the Idea of Evil and how it was born from all of man kinds desires and such. Also how it is a "collective" of feelings because the majority of mans feelings, etc is why it is generally evil.

Miura was first! You callin' him a liar!?

ok, j/k. Actually its very interesting, regardless of whether or not it has a connection.
But it is possible.

I always thought there was some sort of connection. If I might add something, I think Idea is, in a way, similar to Freud's Thanatos, humanity's death wish and self desructive desire. I guess this is a little more obvious, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Zelz said:

Also how it is a "collective" of feelings because the majority of mans feelings, etc is why it is generally evil.

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Nothing says that the Idea of Evil is a "collective of feelings" that is evil because the majority of mankind's feelings are evil, the second part of what Walter quoted is very important in this context.


The collective unconscious is a popular (and old) notion, and while we can easily relate it to Berserk, I don't think Miura used the concept as Jung described it. His influence is more likely to be Oriental, see Inga, Indra, Karma, etc. Not to mention the strong connexion of Idea, the beherits, etc to (primordial) water.

Vaxillus said:

If I might add something, I think Idea is, in a way, similar to Freud's Thanatos, humanity's death wish and self desructive desire.

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Again, I think it's a bit different. The Idea of Evil was created to give humans reasons for what was beyond their understanding:


On a side note, notice that basically the Idea of Evil was born out of mankind's general ignorance. Witches learn about the world surrounding them, it's the reason Farnese decided to become one. Maybe if there had been more witches (and "wisemen"?), the Idea of Evil wouldn't have existed; in any case it stresses the way these two groups oppose themselves (Idea/God Hand/apostles & witches/elementals, etc).

I always thought It was a product of man kind. Born from their dark desires,etc?

Zelz said:

I always thought It was a product of man kind. Born from their dark desires,etc?

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Where'd you read otherwise?