The Eros and Logos

07.12.24

Now that we’ve covered archetypes, we can finally explore the animus and anima. For this section, I’d like to express my gratitude to my teacher Fernando Rodrigues who unlocked my understanding of the Eros and Logos as this allowed me to organize my knowledge and add my own experience.

The first thing we have to get out of the way is that when we’re discussing these concepts we’re not discussing gender. We can’t equate anima with women and animus with men. As we’ve seen, Jung had an empirical approach, this means that he didn’t invent these concepts out of nowhere, rather he found these archetypal images following the comparative method after studying a plethora of myths, religions, cultures, and dreams. He never stated how a man or woman should be, this would be just ridiculous. Archetypes transcend the personal and individual level, and of course gender.

Before we discuss the animus and anima we have to explore the concepts of Eros and Logos, because they’re the generating archetypal principles of the animus and anima. Jung “Regarded both concepts as intuitive ideas which cannot be defined accurately or exhaustively. From the scientific point of view this is regrettable, but from a practical one it has its value, since the two concepts mark out a field of experience which it is equally difficult to define” (C. G. Jung – V14 – §223).

These concepts cannot be grasped solely intellectually, as about half of the experience with the unconscious can be translated into words and theory, and the other half has to be lived and embodied. That’s why knowledge of myths and symbols, and real experience are essential to fully understand it. That said, I’ll do my best to explain these ideas and point you in the right direction so you can build your own understanding.

In the Red Book, Jung gives us an interesting description of these intuitive ideas, “A descendent of Logos is Nous, the intellect, which has done away with the commingling of feeling, presentiment, and sensation. In contrast, the Logos contains this commingling. But it is not the product of such blending, or else it would be a lower animalistic psychic activity; yet it masters the blend, so that the four fundamental activities of the soul become subordinate to its principle. It is an independent principle of form that means understanding, insight, foresight, legislation, and wisdom. The figure of an old prophet is therefore a fitting allegory for this principle, since the prophetic spirit unites in itself all these qualities. In contrast, Eros is a principle that contains a commingling of all the fundamental activities of the soul just as much as it masters them, although its purpose is completely different. It is not form-giving but form-fulfilling; it is the wine that will be poured into the vessel; it is not the bed and direction of the stream but the impetuous water flowing in it. Eros is desire, longing, force, exuberance, pleasure, suffering. Where Logos is ordering and insistence, Eros is dissolution and movement. They are two fundamental psychic powers that form a pair of opposites, each one requiring the other” (C. G. Jung – The Red Book, p. 365).

To simplify, Carl Jung immediately relates these archetypal principles with the Yin and Yang – where the extremes touch and convert into one another. They are the supreme pair of opposites that give the psyche its dynamism. Here I’ve made a chart with all the qualities I could find:

Eros:

• Yin – The dark, cold, and moist.
• The capacity to relate – Ambiguity.
• Personal.
• Lunar character – Irrationality – Chthonic – Nature.
• Openness – Receptiveness – Emptiness – Cyclical.
• Desire, longing, force, exuberance, pleasure, suffering, dissolution, and movement.

Logos:

• Yang – The light, warm, and dry.
• Discrimination – Judgment – Insight.
• Impersonal – Detached – Equal Dignity.
• Solar character – Rationality – Spiritual.
• The principle of will and action – Linear.
• Ordering, insistence, understanding, insight, foresight, legislation, and wisdom.

Although both principles contain the four functions as well as a union of conscious and unconscious qualities, for didactic purposes we can say that the Eros principle is more closely related to the irrational functions, namely sensation, and intuition. In contrast, Logos is more closely related to the rational functions, namely thinking and feeling.

One common mistake is to equate Logos with the thinking function and Eros with feeling, but to Jung, the feeling function is also rational, as it operates with categories and a clear scale of values used to make judgments, otherwise, we only have dry and unfruitful rationalism.

Regarding Eros, it’s important to understand that irrational means extra rational, in other words, it has a way of functioning distinct from the conscious mind as it obeys the laws of nature. While thinking and feeling have clear categories, such as good and evil, in the unconscious the lines are blurred. A physical sensation and the symbolic images that arise from the unconscious don’t have any judgment attached to them, they’re pure experience, as judgments always concern the conscious mind.

That’s why Jung equates Logos with the Sun, as under its glaring light we can clearly see things separated from one another, and it’s possible to categorize, judge, and discriminate. It sees everything with equal dignity and from a position of detachment.

Logos is also more closely related to the mechanism of introversion, since it creates impersonal abstractions and creates separations. As Jung says, Logos is what allows a scientist to have a  “Religious concentration to the classification of lice, or to the different qualities of feces, to put it quite drastically as well as to counting the stars” (Barbara Hannah – The Animus, p. 124).

Now, we can equate the Eros principle with the moon, as under its mild light everything dissolves and starts to blend with one another, the lines are blurred, and instead of division, we start seeing how things are related. That’s why Eros is more closely related to the mechanism of extroversion, since it seeks to be merged with the objects.

With Eros, everything is ambiguous and challenges our perception of good and evil. That’s why dealing with the figures from the unconscious is so difficult, as they obey the laws of nature. They’re always paradoxical and contact with them can either give or take life.

Eros has a very personal quality and it’s about relatedness and reunion. It has an earthy and chthonic quality, it connects us with the five senses and the body, while Logos is more abstract and about the spiritual realm. Logos is about knowledge, while Eros is about relationships. Logos is the principle of will and action, it wants to maintain and conserve things. While Eros is about openness, receptivity, and emptiness.

Eros desires and longs, it’s dynamic and about movement, and that’s why it’s also the principle of dissolution and transformation. Logos gives form and shapes the objects, it’s the vessel which is filled by Eros. Logos is the demarcation of a river, while Eros is the very flow of water.

The Animus and Anima

I started by saying that we can’t equate the animus and Logos with men and Eros and anima with women because these are psychological and archetypal principles that transcend gender. These are forces that have been present since the beginning of mankind and their functioning can be found across all cultures in the syzygies.

That said, it’s important to understand that the unconscious is the receptacle of all human experience, both biological and cultural. During the history of mankind, Logos was projected upon men and Eros upon women. This means that the conscious mind of men is identified with the Logos and Eros is unconscious, as for women, their conscious mind is identified with the Eros and the Logos is unconscious.

Why is that? … Well, that’s a metaphysical question that’s impossible to have a definite answer. There’s an amalgamation of psychological predispositions, biology, and culture. How much each of these components contributed to it is impossible to determine. Perhaps there’s an alternative reality where things are switched, but in ours, that’s how things have been operating.

In theory, it’s possible to have a man with a conscious Eros and a woman with a conscious Logos. Personally, I’ve never seen it. I had the pleasure of working with both homosexual and bisexual men and women, and their psyches always revealed the same psychodynamics and archetypal images.

Again, we’re not discussing gender, so the anima can be projected upon men and the animus can be projected upon women. In fact, both the animus and anima are responsible for most of our projections regardless of gender and this happens very frequently.

In my personal experience, sexual preferences don’t change that. However, we always have to see how things are operating on an individual level, that’s why this remains an open question and I don’t claim to have the truth, I can only share my studies and experience. Just understand that this isn’t about “feeling” in a certain way, we have to follow an empirical approach, as theories mean nothing if not connected to reality.

The Persona Compensation

Emma Jung says Carl Jung “Understands these figures to be function complexes behaving in ways compensatory to the outer personality [persona], that is, behaving as if they were inner personalities and exhibiting the characteristics which are lacking in the outer, and manifest, conscious personality. In a man, these are feminine [eros] characteristics, in a woman, masculine [logos]. Normally both are always present, to a certain degree, but find no place in the person’s outwardly directed functioning because they disturb his outer adaptation, his established ideal image of himself” (Emma Jung – The Animus and Anima, p. 3).

It’s a good time to remember that the conscious and unconscious have a compensatory and complementary relationship, and the unconscious reacts to the conscious attitude. Consequently, the identification with Logos or Eros will generate a counterpart in the unconscious, which we’ll find personified, hence the animus and anima.

Emma Jung explains, In her book Animus and Anima, that there are three main factors that condition these complexes. First, the experience each person has with representatives of the opposite sex, the collective image women have about men, and the collective image men have about women.

Also, the parental complexes play a great role. In men, the father complex serves as a basis for the persona, and the mother complex as a basis for the anima. While in women, the mother complex serves as a basis for the persona, and the father complex as a basis for the animus. Simply put, the relationship with the parents creates a blueprint about what to expect and how to relate with the opposite sex, and consequently with these inner figures.

Moreover, the animus and anima act as a compensation for the persona, and just as the persona is the function of relationship with the external world, the animus and anima will be the function of relationship with the inner world.

Regarding the persona, this psychic function always invites us to maintain an image of perfection, to play our social role, and to do exactly what is demanded and expected of us. However, in this process, we tend to lose our sense of individuality and become our titles, our careers, and identify with labels, gender roles, and conventions.

But the more we identify with the persona, the less conscious we are about the inner world. This creates a split, and the animus and anima rebel against us because they contain essential qualities of our personality that aren’t being consciously expressed.

Of course, the persona is not wholly bad, as it allows us to navigate the external world and live in society. The problem starts when you become identified with this mask, as it always leads to a neurosis and this artificial personality is punished by bad moods, affects, phobias, obsessive ideas, vices, timidity, and even impotence in the case of men.

Both the animus and anima are especially poisonous when you seek to hold an ideal of perfection, when you try to have a supreme morality, and when you give in to stereotypes. In that sense, cultural ideals of what a man or woman should be are always detrimental to our psychological development. These inner figures always invite us to discover our individuality and develop our unique way of being that transcends gender stereotypes.

The animus and anima are the ultimate compensation for our conscious attitude as they have all the qualities that can complement our personality and make us whole. However, this process obviously is not easy, as the interaction with these figures always threatens to destroy our conscious attitude, as they hold such opposing values. We need to cultivate a strong and flexible ego to hold this paradox so as to produce a new synthesis of our personality and advance in our individuation journey.

In that way, both the animus and anima become psychopomps and act as bridges between personal and impersonal, and between conscious and unconscious. In other words, they stop interfering with our daily lives and relationships and help us reach harmony by bringing to our conscious mind the contents that can complement our personality.

The Animus and Anima Function

Lastly, Jung says, “If I were to attempt to put in a nutshell the difference between man and woman in this respect, i.e., what it is that characterizes the animus as opposed to the anima, I could only say this: as the anima produces moods, so the animus produces opinions; and as the moods of a man issue from a shadowy background, so the opinions of a woman rest on equally unconscious prior assumptions”. (C. G. Jung – V7 – 331).

In a woman, the Logos will have the function of providing true insight, which aids the woman in crafting their particulate worldview instead of operating with prejudices and prior assumptions that tend to destroy their relationships. It gives the woman a connection with the spiritual realm, inspiration, and drive to go after what she wants.

While in the man, the anima has mainly the function to give him consciousness of his own emotional life, value system, insight about his relationships, and true purpose in life. Both these figures are also related to creativity and everything that can embellish life and our relationships.

An interesting observation here is that in ancient times the anima and animus were projected upon the gods and had their place in people’s lives. Nowadays, most people don’t have a connection with their inner world and cultivate their spirituality, this exacerbates how much the animus and anima are projected in relationships, and this creates compulsions and toxicity because you expect the other person to give you a sense of purpose, meaning, and spiritual connection.

You expect the other person to be a divine entity and when they don’t correspond, because no human being can, chaos ensues.

Finally, these inner figures invite us to reconnect with our souls and create our unique sense of meaning. Moreover, Jung says that the technical term for the animus and anima is the inferior function, however, we tend to find them personified, making the animus and anima the empirical observation of the inferior function. That’s why it’s also important to make a link with typology as the animus and anima will acquire the opposite qualities of our main function. If you’re a thinking type it will acquire the qualities of feeling, and vice versa. If you’re an intuitive type, it will acquire the qualities of sensation, and vice versa. The same thing goes for introversion and extroversion.

Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life

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