> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.descentpress.com/llms.txt
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# Image, primordial
- URL: https://www.descentpress.com/index/image-primordial/
- Published: 2026-09-05T04:40:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-11T20:12:34.000Z
- Description: Image, primordial — Descent Press Index (entry forthcoming).
- Author: Jae Botávn
- Tags: #index, #Import 2026-09-04 23:45

## 1\. Etymology

**Primordial image** (also *Image, primordial*) is Sharp’s older synonym path for **[archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/)** / archetype. Samuels: *primordial image* → ARCHETYPE.

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## 2\. Plain summary

This Index stub is a hub. Jung’s early language often said **primordial image** where later lexicon says archetypal image—the inherited mythic/patterned image that appears in [dreams](https://www.descentpress.com/index/dreams/), [fantasy](https://www.descentpress.com/index/fantasy/), and culture. Readers should cross to [archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/) for exposition, lexicon quotes, and stamped concordance.

Samuels’s general *image* head (pp. **71ff**) discusses image as context amplifying symbol—useful neighbor, not a substitute for the primordial/archetypal redirect.

**Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common primordial-image motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):**  
synonym of [archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/); early Jungian term; mythic/patterned image; redirect to archetype; Samuels → ARCHETYPE; neighbor *image* (symbol-context).

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## 3\. Academic elucidation

Hub entry only. Authority and §5 sample: [archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/) (AIM-1–2 folded).

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## 4\. Lexicon

**Sharp (1991)**

> Image, primordial. See archetype and archetypal image.

> Primordial image. See archetypal image.

(Sharp, 1991)

**Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986)** — *primordial image* redirect; *image* p. **71**

> primordial image See ARCHETYPE.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986) — redirect; see [archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/).

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

> By means of “active imagination” we are put in a position of advantage, for we can then make the discovery of the archetype without sinking back into the instinctual sphere… The dynamism of instinct is lodged as it were in the infra-red part of the spectrum, whereas the instinctual image lies in the ultra-violet part…  
> (Jung, 1947/1969, CW 8, p. 274, ¶414)

> An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors. If such a content should speak of the sun and identify with it the lion, the king, the hoard of gold guarded by the dragon, or the power that makes for the life and health of man, it is neither the one thing nor the other, but the unknown third thing that finds more or less adequate expression in all these similes, yet—to the perpetual vexation of the intellect—remains unknown and not to be fitted into a formula.  
> (Jung, 1940/1968, CW 9i, p. 157, ¶267)

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**See also:** [archetypal-image](https://www.descentpress.com/index/archetypal-image/); [fantasy](https://www.descentpress.com/index/fantasy/); [dreams](https://www.descentpress.com/index/dreams/); [symbol](https://www.descentpress.com/index/symbol/) (if live); [collective-unconscious](https://www.descentpress.com/index/collective-unconscious/).

## References

Jung, C. G. (1968). The psychology of the child archetype. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 157, ¶267). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1940)

Jung, C. G. (1969). On the nature of the psyche. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), *The collected works of C. G. Jung* (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, p. 274, ¶414). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1947)

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.