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# Anthropos
- URL: https://www.descentpress.com/index/anthropos/
- Published: 2026-09-05T04:40:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-11T20:05:24.000Z
- Description: Anthropos — Descent Press Index (entry forthcoming).
- Author: Jae Botávn
- Tags: #index, #Import 2026-09-04 23:45

## 1\. Etymology

**Anthropos** names **original or primordial man**—an archetypal image of [wholeness](https://www.descentpress.com/index/wholeness/) in alchemy, religion, and Gnostic philosophy. Related: *homo totus*; Chên-yên (true man); [self](https://www.descentpress.com/index/self/); [god-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/god-image/).

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## 2\. Plain summary

The **Anthropos** is the greater human within—the round primordial being akin to God that alchemy and Gnosis already pictured. Jung reads it as evidence that [wholeness](https://www.descentpress.com/index/wholeness/) already exists in the [unconscious](https://www.descentpress.com/index/unconscious/), not as a product the ego invents. Western *homo totus* and Chinese alchemical “true man” rhyme with this figure.

It is not a costume for inflation: meeting the Anthropos image means recognizing a wholeness larger than the everyday [ego](https://www.descentpress.com/index/ego/), kin to the [self](https://www.descentpress.com/index/self/) and [god-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/god-image/) fields without collapsing them into one slogan.

**Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common Anthropos motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):**  
primordial / original man; archetypal wholeness image; alchemy / religion / Gnosis; *homo totus*; Chên-yên true man; greater man within; akin to God; already-existing unconscious wholeness; [self](https://www.descentpress.com/index/self/) neighborhood; [god-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/god-image/) kinship; [opposites](https://www.descentpress.com/index/opposites/) personification essays; [inflation](https://www.descentpress.com/index/inflation/) caution.

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## 3\. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology Anthropos is **wholeness-figure**—primordial totality imaged across traditions. Descent Press keeps Sharp in §4; Samuels has no dedicated head. §5 holds sample CW stamps. Prefer CW 14.

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## 4\. Lexicon

**Sharp (1991)**

> Anthropos. Original or primordial man, an archetypal image of wholeness in alchemy, religion and Gnostic philosophy. There is in the unconscious an already existing wholeness, the “homo totus” of the Western and the Chên-yên (true man) of Chinese alchemy, the round primordial being who represents the greater man within, the Anthropos, who is akin to God.

(Sharp, 1991)

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## 5\. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

> … there is in the unconscious an already existing wholeness, the “homo totus” of the Western and the Chen-yen (true man) of Chinese alchemy, the round primordial being who represents the greater man within, the Anthropos, who is akin to God. This inner man is of necessity partly unconscious, because consciousness is only part of a man and cannot comprehend the whole. But the whole man is always present…  
> (Jung, 1955–1956/1970, CW 14, pp. 127–128, ¶152)

> Compulsion, therefore, has two sources: the shadow and the Anthropos. This is sufficient to explain the paradoxical nature of sulphur: as the “corrupter” it has affinities with the devil, while on the other hand it appears as a parallel of Christ.  
> (Jung, 1955–1956/1970, CW 14, p. 128, ¶153)

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**See also:** [wholeness](https://www.descentpress.com/index/wholeness/); [self](https://www.descentpress.com/index/self/); [god-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/god-image/); [opposites](https://www.descentpress.com/index/opposites/); [inflation](https://www.descentpress.com/index/inflation/); [unconscious](https://www.descentpress.com/index/unconscious/); [ego](https://www.descentpress.com/index/ego/).

## References

Jung, C. G. (1970). Mysterium coniunctionis. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 14, pp. 127–128, ¶¶152–153). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1955–1956)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). *A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis*. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). *Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts*. Inner City Books.

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