New Here? Bookstore Events Donate

ARAS: The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism

ARAS is a world treasure, holding images from every culture across all of human history. It began small, in Eranos, Switzerland, eighty years ago. Once open to only a few researchers, it now reaches a global audience online, showing how the collective unconscious expresses itself in every human society. To appreciate its depth, allow yourself to wander, linger, and ponder. Getting lost is part of it. Your meanderings may turn up surprising imagery and meaning.

The archive holds about 18,000 photographic images, each cross-indexed, individually mounted, and paired with scholarly commentary. Each commentary describes the image and places it in its historical and geographical setting. Many also offer an archetypal commentary on the image’s psychological and symbolic meaning, plus a bibliography and a glossary of technical terms.

The commentaries honor both universal patterns and the specific cultural context of each image, which few other collections do. Keywords drawn from roughly 46,000 catalog subject cards help users explore the archetypal themes that interest them.

Who Uses ARAS?

ARAS serves a wide range of people:

  • Students and scholars in the humanities and related fields, who use it as a research and teaching resource
  • Artists and designers, who look for motifs and iconographic forms for paintings, decoration, film, and theater
  • Individuals who trace mythology, dream imagery, and vision, looking for deep connections that cross national and ideological lines
  • Analysts and psychotherapists from every psychological tradition, who use it to deepen their knowledge of archetypal symbolism

Explore ARAS
Explore the ARAS Newsletter Archive: ARAS Connections: Image and Archetype

To inquire about ARAS, contact us at administration@junginla.org  
or call (310)556-1193 ext. 1

ARAS Teen 2027

A summer program for teens studying Archival Research into Archetypal Symbolism, in collaboration with the Hilde Kirsch Children’s Center.

ARAS is an archive of art and historical objects that explores human creative expression through signs, symbols, and archetypes across cultures, geography, and time. Through research, students connect with symbols in art and culture and discover the world through images, ancient and contemporary.

The archive holds 18,000 images from every region and epoch of human history, each with scholarly commentary. Our mission is to raise awareness of the power of symbolic images and their role in our lives today. Explore ARAS at aras.org.

ARAS Teen LA is an intensive, free, two-week art program for teens aged 14 to 17 in Los Angeles.

Participants will:

  • Take an inner journey with symbols to better understand themselves and others
  • Explore a symbol that speaks to them through collage, poetry, and journaling
  • Create original art inspired by universal symbols
  • Visit museums, galleries, nature reserves, and artist studios
  • Learn to use libraries and archives
  • Meet working artists
  • Present final work showing what their symbol means in their lives

Schedule: Monday through Friday, July 12 to July 23, 2027, 10am to 3pm, in person at the JUNG Institute of Los Angeles. Attendance at all ten days is required.

All supplies are included.

Apply here by June 1, 2027. Interviews will be held in June 2027.


EMBED CODE NEEDED FOR video