Myth

1. Etymology

Myth names an involuntary collective statement based on an unconscious psychic experience. Related: preconscious psyche; archetypal encounter; not conscious invention.

2. Plain summary

The so-called primitive mentality does not invent myths; it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche—many unconscious processes may be indirectly occasioned by consciousness, but never by conscious choice; others arise spontaneously.

Samuels: myths are stories of archetypal encounters (fairy tale ≈ personal complex; myth ≈ archetype (no polished leaf — prose) metaphor). Modern persons remain myth-makers; consciousness can release compulsive hold through confrontation without submission. Pathology is mirrored in myth; taking myth literally risks inflation. Myth provides metaphorical psychic space—not a portent to be fulfilled.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common myth motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
involuntary collective statement; experience not invention; preconscious revelations; archetypal encounter stories; fairy tale vs myth (complex vs archetype); living myth; pathology mirrored; regression as search for mythologems; danger of literalism → inflation; metaphorical perspective; motifs in analysis convey vital meaning.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology myth is involuntary revelation of preconscious psyche—CW 9i ¶261. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels (pp. 95–96) in §4. §5 holds sample CW stamp MYTH-1. Engage Freud contrast at its best (Samuels)—no caricature.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Myth. An involuntary collective statement based on an unconscious psychic experience. … The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 9i ¶261 in Sharp’s lemma.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — myth pp. 95–96

myth … Myths are stories of archetypal encounters. As the fairy tale is analogous to the workings of the personal COMPLEX, the myth is a METAPHOR for workings of the ARCHETYPE per se… modern man is a myth-maker…

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013, pp. 95–96)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings, and anything but allegories of physical processes… Myths, on the contrary, have a vital meaning. Not merely do they represent, they are the psychic life of the primitive tribe, which immediately falls to pieces and decays when it loses its mythological heritage, like a man who has lost his soul.
(Jung, 1940/1968, CW 9i, p. 154, ¶261)

See also: archetypal-image; motif; collective; inflation; incest; complex; symbol (soft).

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. 154, ¶261). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1940)

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.