My thoughts return time and again to Carl Jung’s 1936 paper Wotan. This paper stands out to me as being perhaps his most controversial, given its subject matter: the rise of the Third Reich. Jung’s approach towards the Third Reich is critical, but to our contemporary sensibilities, it reads as not being nearly critical enough. Much has been written on Jung’s complex relationship to the Third Reich—a relationship I will not dwell on here.

My interest relates to what the paper elucidates concerning the collective unconscious. Jung’s view of the collective unconscious shifted over the course of his lifetime, and even today, it remains challenging to pin his theory down explicitly. One can regard this ambiguity as a weakness; his theories often resisted clear definition and scientific rigor. I tend, however, to view this ambiguity as a strength, as it compels us to draw upon our intuited sense of things. His theories often speak to that neglected space between art and science, a space that, in my view, lies somehow closer to the human condition.

In brief, our conscious is that within our own field of awareness, whereas the unconscious holds below the threshold. At a personal level, the unconscious contains what has been repressed by us as individuals. At a collective level, the unconscious constitutes inherited qualities, often linked to but superseding the concept of instinct. The collective unconscious is generally regarded in Jung’s work as a universal force affecting all peoples indiscriminately. In the Wotan paper, however, the so-called collective unconscious is curtailed in its scope, rendered as a force that can operate locally—geographically, nationally, and/or racially—or rather as an ambiguous middle space that combines all three.

For Jung, Wotan (or as he’s more commonly known, Odin), the god of war and thunder, is an archetypal force that lay dormant in the German forest. Christianity historically repressed this Wotanic force, rendering it primitive and demonic. But as Christianity waned in the early half of the 20th century, this primeval force resurfaced, finding a home in the hearts and minds of Germanic youth. This contributed to the rise of Hitler and, in what Jung could not have predicted, the bloodiest world war in history and the genocide of European Jews.

For clarity, I will refer to this geographical and racialized reading of the collective unconscious as the topographical unconscious. This reading suggests both benefits and risks. The most obvious risk is the potentially racist implications of an intrinsically collective racial psychology. This is a complex area beyond the scope of this paper, so I will keep my thoughts brief. In recent decades, biological essentialism has fallen out of favor in academia, replaced by social constructivist theories. This shift aligns with a broader trend toward dissolving the interplay between our interior and exterior selves concerning race and gender. Analytical psychology, in elevating the import of this interplay, often clashes with this trend. Can we really say that race is merely skin deep? It leads me to wonder if it’s possible to imagine a topographical unconscious model that recognizes racial psychology while avoiding racist pitfalls. This evidently depends on one’s definition of racism.

Now, let us explore the benefits of such a model. Beyond anything else, it imbues matter and space with greater weight and value. Just as individuals carry unconscious content from their personal lives, this model suggests that unconscious content can be transmitted intergenerationally and into physical space. This deposited content might consist of images, senses, or patterns of thought. It is as if our consciousness has a physical dimension that can leave impressions on the fabric of reality. As strange as this idea sounds, I think we intuitively behave as if it were true. Sacred spaces like churches seem to carry the weight of those who worshipped there historically. In graveyards, we feel the presence of death. In homes, we sense security, and in places of atrocity, we often feel foreboding or pain. It seems that strong emotions—joy, grief, rage, peace, fear—leave a lasting impression on the world around them.

This model elevates the significance of land and space, encouraging us to be mindful of the spaces we inhabit and their historical use. It matters who walked this ground before us. How did they think? What did they believe? What were their hopes and struggles? If our state of mind ripples out beyond us in this manner, then our states of being hold lasting significance. Even when alone, we are affecting and being affected by more than the given moment. What impressions upon this fabric of reality do we want to leave? This suggests a kind of ongoing psychic interplay within spacetime, wherein nothing is ever truly lost.

One might feel compelled to interrogate the sense in which such a topographical unconscious model is true. True in a poetic sense? In a metaphorical sense? Or true in a metaphysical sense? Either way, living as if such a model is true might be rewarding and beneficial in itself.

As a final thought, I believe one implication of the Wotan paper is that it problematizes the usual dual model of the unconscious—personal and collective. Is it not more accurate to conceptualize the unconscious as layered, becoming increasingly universal the deeper one goes?