Carl Jung

**Carl Gustav Jung** was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in
anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy and religious studies. Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the
 lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of
each individual's conscious and unconscious elements. Jung considered it
 to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best
known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, and extraversion and introversion. **Analytical psychology** is the psychological tradition that stems from his ideas.

Everyone knows that persona takes a lot of
terms from jung's psychology, but what a lot of people don't know is
that the main series (especially the Neutral alignment) closely
takes from jung as well. Both with the relationship of demons to mental structures, and the specific connotations that figures like yhvh and lucifer have. Although he made sure to make a distinction between his
pure psychological work and his more mystical leanings, jung saw
psychology as a way to construct a form of modern pantheism that he
thought would function as the modern form of religion, and which was
getting to the root of what classical religion was indirectly a means
to get to, whether or not they realized. And he put a lot of effort
into concocting a system which didn't overtly make outlandish claims,
staying closer to what he understood of science and psychology, but
still placed spirituality at its center in a very important role,
which joined what he saw religion as “accidentally getting at” in the past,
with modern study of the world.

Jung has influences from various sources, such as the historical concept of alchemy, as well as major philosophers such as schopenhauer and schelling. His idea of the collective unconscious was influenced by schelling's idea of a certain continuity between the mental and the natural, according to
which the unconscious can be understood as the productive activity in
nature which stands in analogy to mental activity, but prior to the act
of reflection which renders it an object for itself, and so elicits
consciousness. And jung seems to have had a panpsychist or proto panpsychist view of the world in this way, seeing the emergence of the individual from it as coming from increasing states of individuation.

## Psychology

### Persona and Shadow

**The persona** is the social face the individual presented to the world. a kind of
mask, designed on the one hand to interact with, and make a
particular impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the
true full nature of the individual. Or an armor on the heart for confronting worldly maters. This is not only to conceal
things from others, but even often from yourself. Its a form of
abstraction. All the qualities of the self that the self wants to be
known as. Jung applied the term persona, explicitly because, in
Latin, it means both personality and the masks worn by Roman actors
of the classical period, expressive of the individual roles played.
Signifying the dual nature, both that it is part of you, as well as
an illusion in some sense. In persona 5 this is depicted literally, with the personas being depicted as masks directly.

Note here that the persona can be both bad
and good. In its bad sense it is refusal to accept one's shadow and
negative aspects. In its positive sense, it is composing an identity
out of one's good aspects and striving to make those the core of
one's life. The goal is to understand one's weaknesses, without
letting them overcome you. And it should be noted that not having a
persona means not having an idea of what it is one wants to be or
identify as, and so leads to confusion, so in a sense it is a
necessary presentation. Jung believed that obsessive identification with only the persona led to an extreme obsession with how one is seen by others. And that the goal of individuation required understanding one's own shadow.

Note of course that in actual jungian psychology, one generally always has a persona, personas in game are a bit different than a direct interpretation of the concept. Being generally more like an interpretation of a more directly self actualized version of the persona after acceptence of and integration of the shadow. People who get tangible personas in game are undergoing something closer to what jung calls individuation, as seen below.

**The shadow** is the flipside of the
persona. It is the more unconscious aspects of the self which the ego
does not identify with, and so are the parts of the self that are not
part of the persona. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant
of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the
shadow
is largely negative. Though this is not exclusively true, since
people such as self depreciating people may struggle to identify with
or accept their positive qualities as well. And it is also seen as
having some positive aspects, such as being the source of creativity. In persona 5, shadows are affiliated with the deadly sins, being negative aspects of people they don't want to identify with. And these sins depicting shadow qualities.

The shadow may appear in dreams and
visions in various forms, confronting the dreamer. Although jung
warned that dreams are not necessarily puzzles to be solved, so while
dream interpretation is useful, it is not easy nor perfectly
reliable. When the active persona breaks down in some sense, with
people being faced with their own negative aspects, and struggling to
accept them, which can lead to negative emotions or a breakdown of
their sense of self. But this can lead to healing once they come to
terms with the shadow. And the goal then is to understand awareness
of the shadow as part of the self, but without identification with
it, and without incorporation of its negatives into an active part of
the ego.

Note of course confrontation of one's shadow in tangible
form in dream like states, as well as the reality of facing its
existence both represent things seen in persona. Facing one's shadow
and accepting it is not a one time event, but a continuous process
throughout one's life that leads to individuation. In the persona games, confronting your shadow and the process from this to upholding your persona while accepting the reality of your shadow is shown in tangible form. Note that the tangible confrontation of it in dream like states parallels the surreal areas gone to to do so in game.

Interestingly, jung compared the qliphoth and the emanations of the left side from kabbalah to the concept of the shadow. And in persona 5 that association is a direct part of the plot.

### Goals

**Enantiodromia** is the principle that the superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium in the
natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order
to restore balance. To jung, this also involved too much
identification with the persona and rejection of the shadow in the
sense of denying the reality of one's own negatives. Which would lead
to them fostering out of control. It also applies to a balanced
outlook on life in general, and ties to some of his more overtly
neutral sounding ideas. This idea closely relates to the yin and
yang, which is something jung related it to, and closely
factors into his system as a whole. His system has very neutral
sounding language, and in game yin yang symbols are
associated with neutral, so an association is apparent.

**Individuation**. is a psychological
process of integrating the opposites including the conscious with the
unconscious while still maintaining their relative autonomy,
necessary for a person to become whole. Jung considered proper
integration to be the goal of psychology, and on a wider sense the
goal of spirituality in general, though earlier forms may not have
realized it. Besides achieving physical and mental health, he considered people who
have advanced towards individuation to be likely to be harmonious, and
responsible. They embody humane values due to having less personal
weakness, and have a good understanding about the workings of human
nature and their place in it. Individuation connects one not only
with the individual conscious, but with the collective unconscious,
which is how it ties to his spirituality.

Note that the goal of individuation in and of itself has a presumed level of balance involved in the concept. Because he considered trying to go too far in one direction in term of the binary opposites to be an unbalanced mentality that psychologically would not function properly, leading to repression of and reversal to the opposite. This is obviously related to neutral explicitly in game, even with discussions about how a bad excess of law or chaos can give rise to its opposite. And so neutral's goal is integration. Jung even associated these binary opposites with concepts like God and the devil to represent ordered and chaotic ones, saying a balance is preferable. This also being a dismissal of archetypal goals far from the norm of humanity, like the stoic sage. Note of course that this is a description of psychological stability and self actualization rather than an ideological goal.

### Collective Unconscious

**The collective unconscious** is
something which has two layers. **The minimal interpretation** and **the**
**maximal interpretation.** In order to understand this concept, it is
essential to understand Jungian archetypes. The archetypes of the
collective unconscious could be thought of as the DNA of the human
psyche. Just as all humans share a common physiological pattern
determined by DNA, archetypes are psychic elements that determine the
shared psychological pattern Jung called the collective unconscious.
You can consider the collective unconscious the equivalent of the
“collective human arm” It refers to structures of the unconscious
mind which are shared among beings of the same species.

According to
Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts and
by archetypes: universal symbols such as the Great Mother, the Wise
Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, the Tree of Life, and many
more. It is distinguished from the personal unconscious which are the
aspects unique to an individual. (this may sound too specific, to
imply that an actual symbol of these things is encoded into people's
minds. But that is not what he meant. See: archetypes, below)

In analytical psychology, another name for the collective unconscious is the **objective psyche**. So called, because it is not personal and therefore not subjective.

**The maximal interpretation of the**
**collective unconscious.** While jung when focusing on psychology
described the collective unconscious as something which exists in the
collective human psyche. However, jung also had mentioned at times
that certain ideas of his led him to believe that mind was not
confined to human brains. He believed that a more abstract form of it
existed in nature as a whole. Saying that water or seawater seemed to
represent a blind unconscious. He might have got this idea from
alchemical texts, something he was also familiar with and interested
in. A quote detailing this in more detail below.

"there does seem to be a basic
ambiguity in Jung's various descriptions of the Collective
Unconscious. Sometimes he seems to regard the predisposition to
experience certain images as understandable in terms of some genetic
model" – as with the collective arm. However, Jung was "also
at pains to stress the numinous quality of these experiences, and
there can be no doubt that he was attracted to the idea that the
archetypes afford evidence of some communion with some divine or
world mind', and perhaps 'his popularity as a thinker derives
precisely from this"

Note that world mind doesn't
necessarily mean independently sentient God-like world mind, but uses
the word unconscious specifically for this reason. To describe an
abstract blind world mind that active life comes out of. In practice,
though its uncertain whether Jung knew of the term this relates
closely to the idea of **panpsychism,** which is one of the main
theories in philosophy of mind, stating that if mind is physical, and
strong emergence does not exist then some abstract form of
mind must exit within all things, elsewise its emergence from
something which does not have a form of those properties would be
incoherent.
And active egoes are just an activation or manifestation of it.
However, it is uncertain to what level jung took this idea, because
he did not talk about the maximal interpretation often, instead
focusing on the more “relevant” scientific version of describing
how it manifests in human brains.

Persona 2 more explicitly talks about the maximal interpretation of the collective unconscious, treating it as the deepest layer of the spiritual world. It specifically conflates it with atziluth, the kabbalic world of archetypes, in which archetypes for creation exist that structure the lower worlds. It still conflates it with the human mind however, with the archetypes that give rise to things being not set ones from before creation, but shaped by human thoughts and feelings. And the games talk about demons coming from blueprints for them, being a description of these archetypes.

**Collective consciousness** is the set of shared beliefs, ideas and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society. For instance, organized religion, exemplified by the Catholic Church, lies more with the collective consciousness; but, through its all-encompassing dogma it channels and molds the images which inevitably pass from the collective unconscious into the minds of people. So while the archaic form of something that manifests as the form of say an angel might lie in the collective unconscious, the form it takes is part of the collective consciousness.

The persona games often don't bother distinguishing the collective unconscious from unconscious aspects of collective consciousness, often ambiguously lumping them together. For instance, they talk about everyone's personal unconsciouses melded together form the collective unconscious, describing mementos as the collective unconscious. But this isn't a totally direct depiction of the jungian concept. Because a lot of personal unconsciousesses with similar content is not what the collective unconscious is, because it is an underlying archaic thing inherent to humanity itself. In game, the "real" world is associated with consciousness, whereas the metaverse is associated with the unconscious.

They do however also use the term cognition to distinguish this, which cognition refers to something more like consciousness in general, and so group cognition being collective consciousness in a sense, even if some of it is unconscious. Mementos is described as changing every time you visit it because it is the cognition of society at large. So they are admitting that this is in a sense closer to the concept of collective consciousness. Though, following the theme of depicting the metaverse as only negative aspects, this is not the mentality of humanity in general, but only the negative aspects. Which distinguishing negative and positive in this sense is dubious to consider from a psychological lens, because objective ethical knowledge is not built into psychology, but even so.

One other aspect to mention is that the games show that the public's belief in you effects how far into the collective consciousness you can go. Which is a tangible depiction of how ideas spread among society in general, and by extension what their effect can be. If an idea is not widespread, it cannot have as direct an effect. Likewise, they point out that the security level does not rise in mementos, since the entire population would have to see you as an enemy for it to. This relating to public views of ideas in general, and how individuals not liking it is different from it being a commonly seen as negative idea.

**Unus mundus**, Latin for "**one world**", is the concept of an underlying unified reality from
which everything emerges and to which everything returns. The idea
was popularized in the 20th century by Jung, though the term can be
traced back to scholastics, and of the classical alchemists. Jung, in
conjunction with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, explored the
possibility that his concepts of the archetype and synchronicity
might be related to the unus mundus - the archetype being an
expression of unus mundus; synchronicity, or "meaningful
coincidence", being made possible by the fact that both the
observer and connected phenomenon ultimately stem from the same
source, the unus mundus. Jung was always careful, however, to stress
the tentative and provisional nature of such explorations into a
unitarian idea of reality. Unus Mundus (One Mind/One World) is a
Jungian concept in which human elements are simultaneously separate
and unified, eliminating disharmony on our journey to wholeness.

Jung had this to say about it: "Dorn's explanation is illuminating in that it affords us a deep insight into the alchemical mysterium coniunctionis. If this is nothing less than a restoration of the original state of the cosmos and the divine unconsciousness of the world, we can understand the extraordinary fascination emanating from this mystery. It is the Western equivalent of the fundamental principle of classic Chinese philosophy, namely the union of yang and yin in tao, and at the same time a premonition of that “tertium quid” which, on the basis of psychological experience on the one hand and Rhine’s experiments on the other, I have called “synchronicity”. If mandala symbolism is the psychological equivalent of the unus mundus, then synchronicity is its parapsychological equivalent." - Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis

This idea relates to his spirituality,
and to which we get the maximal idea of the collective unconscious.
Jung seemed to suggest that the human mind was indirectly linked to
an unconscious world mind that lives forever. This is the idea of
monopsychism. And what he means by this is that since human minds are
continuous with the world in general, and composed of the same
elements that there's no real strict line where new rules start, but
that the properties we think of governing mentality should be
considered to be a more manifest form of the rules of the world in
general, and continuous with them.

It seems that in some sense he
considered this a stand in for God, (More about that below) and to be
what religion was indirectly grasping at though, which the archetypes
caused them to see as more directly sentient and active in the world.
Though as always this idea more closely resembles the great will, and a latent
more abstract idea. Especially since the overall dynamic of how demons function and how spiritual realms are shaped by human though, the series is heaveily based on the jungian paradigm. This is doubly true of course since in game demons are shaped by human thoughts, and the great will is what gives this power. So relating it to the collective unconscious is in a sense direct.

Note though that this isn't meant to imply he is disagreeing with naturalism. His goal was to reconcile these ideas with a fairly naturalist framework. Making sense of god and spirituality in a sense without having to appeal to tangible supernatural external entities.

### Archetypes

**Archetypes** are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious. Being unconscious, the
existence of archetypes can only be deduced indirectly by examining
behavior, images, art, myths, religions, or dreams. Carl Jung
understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that
derive from the collective unconscious and are the mental
counterpart of instinct. They are inherited potentials which are
actualized when they enter consciousness by taking the form of images (of gods, demons, etc) or manifest in
behavior on interaction with the outside world. They are autonomous
and hidden forms which are transformed once they enter consciousness
and are given particular expression by individuals and their
cultures.

The demons in game are based on archetypes, and how they are given form through observation tends to resemble how jung sees them as developing in human minds. Note that the beings in game being based on archetypes also goes to show that the sides and the figures on them represent an inner struggle as well as an external one. Because the same beings that appear as external beings in the plots are analogues of the archetypes as they would appear in the mind of individuals (in some games it even talking about demons living in the human mind).

So the stories are also telling the story of an individual making internal decisions based on these influences. And the nature of the influences are continuous both from the inside and outside. The fact that dream interpretation is a heavy aspect of jung's work is likely a reason so much emphasis is placed on dreams in the games. With them often opening with seeing figures in dreams who will represent things to one in real life. (likely also why nyarlathotep is placed as the opposite of philemon, due to the focus on dreams in lovecraft).

Strictly speaking, **Jungian** **archetypes** refer to unclear underlying forms or the
archetypes-as-such from which emerge images and motifs such as
the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood among others. It
is history, culture and personal context that shape these manifest
representations thereby giving them their specific content. These
images and motifs are more precisely called **archetypal images**.
However it is common for the term archetype to be used
interchangeably to refer to both **archetypes-as-such** and
**archetypal images.** Jung obviously was not saying that anything as
obvious as a direct story about “tricksters” was inherently
encoded into the human mind. He saw this as a more abstracted pattern
that manifests in similar ways. at times. Jung was fond of comparing
the form of the archetype to the axial system of a crystal, which
preforms the crystalline structure of the mother liquid, although it
has no material existence of its own. The aspect of archetypes seen as a quasi physical pattern in the brain rather than psychological are called the **psychoid archetype.**

In later years Jung revised and
broadened the concept of archetypes even further, conceiving of a form of them as existing as abstract psycho-physical patterns existing in the universe, given specific expression by human consciousness and culture. Jung
proposed that the archetype had a dual nature: it exists both in the
psyche and in the world at large. This
obviously closely seems to relate to how demons are seen in game.
They seem to refer to themselves as pre-existing aspects of reality,
but at the same time, be something that becomes more manifest when
put in minds. This becomes even more overt below (see: anima and
animus). Note that if we interpret him as saying abstract mind exists
in the world at large, then even their abstracted forms in the world
relate to some forms of sentience independent of humans, albeit a
blind form in the collective unconscious of the world.

The archetype was not merely a psychic
entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general. Jung
used the term unus mundus to describe the unitary reality which he
believed underlay all manifest phenomena. He conceived archetypes to
be the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the
psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in
the physical world. While this description is a bit ambiguous, this is because jung likely only had a hazy idea himself about how far this went. Jung said "The fact is that the numbers pre existing in nature are presumably the most fundamental archetypes, being the very matrix of all others. Giving rise to this idea of patterns in the world being archaic forms of the archetypes in humans.

Jung himself was always concerned to distinguish the persona as an
external function from those images of the unconscious he called archetypes.
 Thus whereas Jung recommended conversing with archetypes as a
therapeutic technique he himself had employed (showing the quasi reality he placed in them)—"For decades I always
turned to the anima when I felt my emotional behavior was disturbed, and I would speak with the anima about the images she communicated to me"—he
 stressed that "It would indeed be the height of absurdity if a man
tried to have a conversation with his persona, which he recognized
merely as a psychological means of relationship."

Jung described **archetypal events**: birth, death, separation from parents, initiation, marriage, the union of opposites; **archetypal figures**: great mother, father, child, devil, god, wise old man, wise old woman, the trickster, the hero; and **archetypal motifs**:
 the apocalypse, the deluge, the creation. Although the number of
archetypes is limitless, there are a few particularly notable, recurring
 archetypal images, "the chief among them being" (according to Jung)
"the *shadow*, the *wise old man*, the *child*, the *mother* ... and her counterpart, the *maiden*, and lastly the *anima* in man and the *animus* in woman".

**Trickster**. In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a **trickster** is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphisation),
 which exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge, and
uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and
conventional behaviour. It is one of the important archetypes of Jung. Jung notes that the trickster is a wildcard who can invert the hierarchical order. In persona 5 the main character is referred to as a trickster, and this plays into the themes of subversion of the social order.

**Synchronicity** is a concept first
explained by psychiatrist Carl Jung, which holds that events are
"meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal
relationship, yet seem to be meaningfully related. This doesn't
relate to his main psychological points very closely, but is
something he explained in a way that implies he thought it might be
similar to his archetypes. Basically, ESP and various psychic things
like it were commonly accepted in jung's time. And he tried to dispel
the idea of them being totally mystical by saying that meaningful
coincidences can happen based on patterns in reality that things flow
down that can result in similar patterns showing up in different
places. However, despite being an attempt to be more down to earth
and logical, he did take this in a little bit more sketchy angle than
we would now say it makes sense to go in.

In record breaker, you walk
in to fumi doing an experiment right when she says she needs you, and
she asks herself if it was synchronicity that you happened to walk in
when you were needed. It is also part of the title of synchronicity prologue. The idea of synchronicity can also be used to explain how different universes tend to have similar archetypes and the same struggles going on within them. Being similarly based on the idea of patterns in reality causing related events to happen without causal connection.

### Self and complexes

**A complex** is a core pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, and wishes in the personal unconscious organized around a common theme, such as power or status. Primarily a psychoanalytic term, it is found extensively in the works of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. An example of a complex would be as follows: if you had a leg amputated
when you were a child, this would influence your life in profound ways,
even if you overcame the physical handicap. You may have many thoughts,
emotions, memories, feelings of inferiority, triumphs, bitterness and
determinations centering on that one aspect of your life. If these
thoughts were troubling and pervasive, Jung might say you had a complex
about the leg.

Early in Jung's career, he developed the concept of the "complex", A
"complex" meaning a personal unconscious, core pattern of emotions,
memories, perceptions, and wishes organized around a common theme. Note that complexes are not all bad, but are themselves necessary. Jung included the **ego**
 in a broadly comprehensive theory of complexes, often referring to it
as the **ego-complex** as illustrated when he said "by ego I understand a
complex of ideas which constitutes the center of my field of
consciousness and appears to possess a high degree of continuity and
identity. Hence I also speak of an ego-complex".

What
distinguishes Jungian psychology is the idea that there are two
centers of the personality. The ego is the center of consciousness,
whereas the Self is the center of the total personality, which
includes consciousness, the unconscious, and the ego. (Note that the ego emerges from the self not dissimilarly from how the self emerges from the world at large). Complexes are
defined as a 'node' in the unconscious; it may be imagined as a knot
of unconscious feelings and beliefs, detectable indirectly, through
behavior that is puzzling or hard to account for. Complexes
may be conscious, partly conscious, or unconscious. What's more, the
ego is not the only distinct node of consciousness. Other parts of
the self may have partially distinct individual consciousness that
operates in different ways. And so strictly speaking there isn't just
“one” active personality so to speak in a self, assuming you
define your person as your ego. Multiple personality disorder is seen
as an extreme example of this, where other complexes develop enough
individuality to compete with the main mind in a more active way.
Complexes can have both positive and negative aspects, so while it is
important to prevent negative ones from overtaking you, they in
general are something that should be accepted as a main part of the
self. And complexes by their nature obviously form around and in
accord with archetypes.

Note that although the concept of cognitive distortions is its own thing which will be detailed on the separate psychology page, the concept of the **palace** in persona 5 seems to be based somewhat on the idea of complexes. Implying that these distortions can be a cause that leads to a complex. Since a palace isn't in and of itself identical to cognitive distortions, but can stem from them, similarly to how in real psychology various negative or psychopathological states can come from cognitive distortions. In game they refer to palaces as emerging around distorted cognition and desires that revolve around a common theme. Tying to how the complex is based on a specific idea. However, they also specifically depict this as exclusively negative, depicting palaces as always a problem. Which ties it in to a kind of moral element that goes somewhat beyond psychology. In practice, since they depict them as subconscious viewing of things in symbolic ways (like seeing people as atms), that is something that everyone does to some extent, so that aspect wouldn't make sense to depict as distinct from ordinary cognition aside from it also having these connotations of negativity. Palaces in game are lived in by the shadow self of the individual who spawned them, and are filled with illusory cognitive existences of people as the person who spawned them sees them. And they also show the relation between the physical world and mental content, with you being unable to progress in them based on certain mental rejections of you.

**Anima** and **animus.** anima as
being the unconscious feminine component of males and the animus as
the unconscious masculine component in females. Detailing how these
work is not necessarily that important. At the time they were seen by
him as a way to help alleviate sexism, by seeing excessive bias as
stemming from a lack of understanding of one's anima. But by modern
standards they are seen as a little overly essentialist and sexist.
And this is considered the most important complex after the ego. The
more important part to note here is that he considered these to be
the most “active” and positive complex within a person. Enough so
that it can actually function as a partially distinct mind that you
can talk to, and receive subconscious responses from in order to help
understand your own mind. It functions literally as a form of inner
guardian
angel
or “inner voice” that helps you interact with your own
unconscious, and by extension the collective unconscious or “one
world” as a whole. (Note its relation to the idea of God.) Jung
believed that spirituality related to this inner voice which exists
as a partially distinct personality in your own mind, but which
religions of the past had mistakenly considered to be a distinct
entity. And that in the end, spirituality should not be seen as a
journey to some otherworldly source, but an inner journey to fully
self actualize one's self. Since the self is a microcosm of the unus
mundus.

The obvious thing to note is how the velvet room attendants represent the anima and animus. The ones presented to you for a male mc are generally female and vice versa. They of course have independent existence of their own, so they are not literally nothing but your own anima or animus, but are chosen to reflect the role.

This also in a more general sense more directly relates to how
demons are seen in game. Since demons are seen as independently
sentient in some fashion, but at the same time are sometimes subtly
hinted to be dependent on human minds in some sense. From a jungian
perspective, it could have to do with the fact that if the world
itself has an abstract mind, then an abstracted form of the
archetypes exist and generate unconscious mind in the world at large,
and so natural forces correspond to them. (Loosely) But they can
condense into symbols in your mind that have some level of more
active distinct sentience, while still dependent on your mind. And
this is where you get inner symbols of spirits you can interact with,
not realizing that they are not quite as independently sentient as
you imagined. (Though jung was clear to point out that they are more
independently sentient then you would think if told they were just
parts of your mind.) He was also clear to point out that the
archetypes themselves might extend beyond just your mind, (doubly so
by panpsychist interpretations where he thought the world in general
was a collective unconscious) so in some “vague” sense they could
be seen as another partial entity, though not in a direct way in the
sense humans are. Since we already know that persona is based heavily
on jung, it is likely that the mainline games are meant to be
continuous with this idea in this sense.

**Philemon** refers to an inner spirit figure jung claims to have had conversations with about
consciousness. It also called itself elijah (Not that it matters, but
note that Sandalphon
is generally seen as the angelic form of Elijah) and Ka at different
times. Jung realized from this experience that although philemon was
not a real distinct actual spirit in the usual sense, that parts of
your mind can function autonomously to a high degree, which to him
destroyed the notion that you simply had one active mind and a
totally non active unconscious. He also notes that
philemon
gave him ideas which he himself did not seem to know, and as such
they can even hold different knowledge. (Something that people with
multiple personality disorder say happens in a more overt way.) This
obviously relates to that in-game philemon describes itself as
something that exists within, yet is in some sense distinct.

>"I am Philemon, a dweller in
the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness of all souls... I
am you. You are me... I shall always watch over you from within.
Farewell..."

Philemon also wears a play mask,
detailing the source of the term persona. To what degree jung thought
this was a real conversation is unknown, but he realized that these
inner archetypes manifested as spirits existed ultimately within, but
could be interpreted by people as possession or guidance. But at the
same time, since they are continuous from the archetypes in the world
at large he points out that you should not dismiss them as mere
illusions.

This of course relates to the idea that
it is hard to define what one concrete “individual” even is to
begin with. If people's bodies are continuous with the world, then
there's no obvious reason to assume that just because their ego sees
itself as psychologically distinct it means that they are truly
ontologically a “single” individual rather than just a “mass”
of consciousness. (And if panpsychism is true, then more like a spike
in activity in the consciousness of the world). Doubly so once you
realize that the ego is only a small slice of the self, and that the
brain cannot even fully understand itself. (Though it should be noted
that Jung never explicitly said this about the self, despite saying
that mind might extend beyond the body). If what one defines as the
self is primarily the ego, then distinct partially conscious other
minds based on eternal archetypal patterns shared by the world at
large are in a way a manifestation of forms of eternal entities. And
since their manifestation as complexes is a different form of what
the ego itself is as a complex, jung saw this as an intermediary
position between “spirits” existing and not existing, since
ultimately they existed within in a concrete enough way that you were
actually referring to something real, and which was external in some
sense as well. Obviously even the ego itself was built upon an
archetype in some sense, and so humans were continuous in every facet
with the unconscious and eternal world mind that they were a
microcosm of, and relate to its sub aspect archetypes.

Likewise, viewed in this light it makes
it more open ended how literal some of the demons in game are
supposed to be taken. Note that in games like IV, you have lucifer on
neutral talking about humans subsuming the demons into their mind (He
even explicitly uses the word shadow, possibly to tie it to jung, and
have it be seen as continuous with persona). And interviews, as well
as what the white say seem to imply humans having some vague power
even over YHVH's actions. And they even highlight the symbiotic
relationship they seem to have. Note that things like philemon or
izanami or whoever in persona seem to function more or less
identically to demons from mainline, despite being tied to an inner
world of the collective unconscious in this way. So you're being
showed a different layer or aspect of something that is in a way the
same thing.

## Spirituality

### General

**Spirituality**. Now to focus on his
spiritual beliefs that tie all this together. Jung's work on himself
and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose
beyond material goals. And that while religions of the past had
misunderstood it, that spirituality and the spiritual were very real
(albeit natural) things that were important to one's wellbeing.

Jung believed that this journey of
transformation, which he called individuation, is at the mystical
heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the
same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Freud's more explicitly
atheistic worldview, Jung's pantheism led him to believe that
spiritual experience was essential to our well-being, as he
specifically identifies individual human life as a microcosm of the
universe as a whole. Jung's idea of religion as a practical road to
individuation has been quite popular, and is still treated in modern
textbooks on the psychology of religion.

An important point about jung's spiritual views are that he didn't quite consider the archetypes to
just be metaphors. One of the points he was making is that they are in a sense real. The world exists, and jung views it in a kind of
pantheistic light. Likewise, the archetypes as they exist in the human
mind aren't just human constructs, but reflect patterns that exist in
reality itself. This is also how he thought synchronicity worked, based on similar events arising based on being the unfolding of a similar pattern.

For instance, for an example of a pattern, evolution isn't any
particular "thing." Yet on any planet with life we could expect it to
exist. Its a pattern inherent to reality in general. Same as like
mathematical proportions or other things it would be harder to notice.
To jung, the archetypes are themselves unfoldings of these patterns. The
 way humans perceive them is necessarily tied to the human mind, but
they aren't -just- ideas. The ideas are tapping into facts about the
larger pantheistic reality.

What's more, his emphasis on how what
 we think of as "us" is just our ego also relates to this idea. The self
 emerges from the "world," and the ego emerges from the self. But all
these things are continuous since the mind is just a physical process,
and so all physical processes are proto-mind. To him, these pictures
that appear in our minds are not only reflective of patterns that
pervade the world at large, but are even quasi sentient, in the sense
that ideas are themselves mental content, and so these figures exist as
like collective mental organisms passed around society. And since they
"exist" in your mind itself, your mind is conscious, and so their
existence is in a sense a semi conscious one. When you see an angel,
this is both a reflection of the consciousness of society, as well as
your own, and so in a sense is kind of a "being" that lives in the
unconscious.

This isn't just meant as a metaphor, but as a literal ramification of realizing people are physical things. The idea of people as discrete autonomous things isn't actually a
physical fact. Its an invention of greek philosophy, and religious ideas
 of the soul. One that many eastern religions don't share, and which if
you look into history you will realize that they didn't quite think back
 then either. So there in't necessarily a rule that one brain is one
individual or that individuals are totally discrete. What you call your
individual self in practice isn't even your entire mind, but just your
ego. So his point is that these mental structures that live in your
subconcious function in a semi literal sense as an actual different
mental being. Not one that is as tangible as our ego is obviously, but
not entirely one that is not real either.

His ideas are similar to how
people with multiple personality disorder sometimes insist that these
separate minds are to some degree true distinct beings and how you can
only understand it if you have them. The point is that there is nothing
inherently making that entirely "not true," because the choice to call a
 brain an individual is a constructed one based on how it normally seems
 that way. But even in regular individuals, the idea of a distinct
dominant self is just what comes out of the ego, and sub aspects that
aren't entirely integrated into this personality exist all the time.
This is the basis of his ideas. From this perspective, it is misleading
to call these gods that exist as manifestations of the archetypes fake, because they actually exist as things in the
subconscious, and once you factor in that they emerged from patterns in
reality itself, and collapse the subject/object distinction that these
same patterns are reflective of the world at large.

Since there are levels of development from the world to the unconscious to individuation, he also believed that one's connection to the essence of the divine should be perceived through the unconscious. He says: "Mankind wishes to love in God only their ideas, that is to say, the
ideas which they project into God. By that they wish to love their
unconscious, that is, that remnant of ancient humanity and the
centuries-old past in all people, namely, the common property left
behind from all development which is given to all men."

So jung
considered himself actually a quasi theist. Religious people weren't
entirely lying when they talked about how they were tuning into
something bigger, because their collective ideas in essence function as a
 literal group mind. One that also emerged from and has the patterns of
reality pervading it.

**Concepts**. According to Murray Stein, Jungian
training analyst and author, Jung related theological concepts and
psychological concepts using three tenets:

1. That words about theological
constructs (such as "God") can be interpreted as referring
to structures within the psyche. This means not just the individual
human psyche but the world-psyche as a whole, and your mental
relation to it. Note
that in the creation of Adam, God is deliberately drawn to look like
a giant brain.

2. That psychologists can evaluate the
adequacy of theological constructs against the normative structure
and dynamics of the psyche.

3. That words about the psyche are also
words about God, due to the correspondence between the structures of
subjectivity and objectivity.

He was a proponent in a sense of
cultural religion, saying that its myth, and practices, such as
meditation or prayer was important to give context to spirituality.
For instance, he considered the holy trinity a representation of the
self. With God the father being the primal self.
Jesus
as human representing the emergence of the ego or active self from
it. And the holy spirit as a form of mediator between the two.
Strangely, as he was a proponent of cultural religion, he believed it
would change as needed to incorporate better metaphor about the
psyche into it. He therefore believed that over time the christian
trinity would eventually give rise to a quadernity to encorporate the
missing aspects which were missing as a denial of the feminine in
terms of importance. This analysis prompted Jung to send a
congratulatory note to Pope Pius XII in 1950 upon the adoption of the
doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, under the assumption
that this would lead over time to mary being encorporated into the
fourth person of God, representing the anima. (No doubt the pope
found this letter a little dubious.).

This has an interesting parallel in
game, since yhvh is the one commonly being depicted as god the
father, and there are various avatars and things to depict god having
multiple personhood. Yet the ambiguous absent feminine can correspond
to mem aleph who seems to be depicted as the chaotic analogue to
yhvh. Though in game this absence doesn't seem to be about
femininity, other than in the loose sense that you can associate
masculinity with cold logic and femininity with sensitivity, which
chaos is taken to an extreme of. But chaos itself is not very
feminine, and that is a kind of outdated sexist model of the
concepts, although one that would have been in use during the time of
Jung. So despite bearing that male / female divinity depiction in
game, it can perhaps be taken as more an indication of the dichotomy
between logic and emotion in general.

Jung also wrote a number of books and
articles about Eastern religions, including commentaries on the
Tibetan Book of the Dead, yoga, and Eastern meditation. He also
contributed forewords to books on Zen Buddhism, Holy Men of India,
and the I Ching. He also put a lot of work into restoring gnostic
texts.

Jung saw buddhist mandalas as symbolizing the inner world. Where if you draw the self
as the circle, these buddas live within you, and you are a microcosm
of the universe as a whole. The circle with a cross in it is the most
common symbol used for him though. He also considered the circle to
depict the masculine and the square to depict the feminine. Mandalas
often show up in megaten, such as on the title screens, which may be
a reference to the jungian use as much as to buddhism itself.

**Tarot** Although being associated
with persona, jung himself did not actually know much, nor talk much
about tarot cards save in rare instances. Although some people have
said that due to his ideas they consider it a way to sort their own
thoughts in a form of manifest spirituality. He did however loosely
say that he considered them interesting for such an idea, but that he
had not the time to detail how to do so himself.

**Gnosticism.** Specifically, jung considered his new approach to religion to be a form of gnosticism,
since as he said it is based on knowledge rather than faith. Just as
with the trinity, Jung considered the emergence of the
Demiurge
out of the original, unified monadic source of the spiritual universe
by gradual stages to be analogous to (and a symbolic depiction of)
the emergence of the ego from the unconscious. However, jung did
differ from the ancient gnostics. In that they sought an ultimate
return to the original source, and dissolution of the ego in some
sense. Whereas jung considered this incorrect. He considered the core
of his spirituality to be gnosis of the self, and as the self was a
microcosm of reality this would lead to greater integration to
reality as a whole.

**Reincarnation** Jung flirted with the
idea that even within his (relatively) naturalistic framework, the
interrelatedness of life and the world provided a means for
reincarnation of a sort to exist. (This relates to the fact that even
within the context of some of the naturalistc humanistic themes,
reincarnation is a core staple of the megaten series). Though he
decried personal experiences of past lives as mere beliefs rather
than evidence, he talked about when buddha's disciples asked him if
karma was individual or collective, and then discussed varying
formats himself. Individual meaning that one is born as a distinct
entity again, he also talked of collective karma, the much more
naturalistically plausible idea that a collective series of cause and
effect can re-manifest someone bearing the karma of past individuals
who is not totally identical with the collection of them, but not
totally distinct either. He gives a few offhand thoughts relating to
this, as well as to his idea that people may seamlessly move into
death and exist as a kind of psychological abstraction in the level
of archetypes (he points out that the archetypes being where people's
idea of afterlives comes from it makes sense that it relates to where
they would be released to), with individual lives being a process
their essence moves into without beginning or end, but ultimately
concludes that he does not have enough data for meaningful conclusion
on the matter.

Note the ambiguity here plays out
in-series. Where some characters are implied to be direct
reincarnations, and at other times like in devil survivor different
people are all reincarnations of the spread out essence of one. (and
arguably miyako can be seen as a partial reincarnation of yamato,
though not of a regular sort) But in this case they can act as a
stand in if they have enough of that essence. Its possible of course
that the reincarnations people see as full are in actuality only
partial anyways. Jung also when talking of reincarnation talked about
it as a process without beginning or end, saying that this was more
standard in Hinduism, with only buddha declaring a final end to the
cycles. (This was not quite true however) Jung however thought it
made more sense as an endless process. Which corresponds well to
megaten in-game, since it seems that the cycle in essence goes on
forever, and a final end is rarely talked about save in digital devil
saga, or at times a final stasis is artificially constructed by some
means. Or at least if there is a final end, it is not directly
mentioned. Note that his talking about life and death in the seven
sermons loosely corresponds to his ambiguous ideas about it.

### Seven Sermons to the Dead

Interestingly enough, jung wrote his
own religious text called **seven sermons to the dead**. Titled as if
it was authored not by himself, but by Basilides of Alexandria an
ancient gnostic teacher from 130 AD. The texts are written as if
basilides were adressing a group of ghosts of Christians who had
recently died, and come to ask him questions. In it, he lays out few
simple concepts that imply a vague cosmology, but ironically ties it
to psychology, openly considering it more metaphorical than literal.
Which is something it seems he considered true of gnosticism of the
times, but which likely wasn't as much as he imagined. Everything
past this point is as is defined in his text as written by an ancient
gnostic.

**Pleroma** is a term for the gnostic
godhead. In the sermons, it opens with describing the pleroma as both
a full infinity, and as nothingness, saying that they are the same
thing when dealing with the infinite primal reality. It bears no
qualities of its own, but at the same time bears infinite qualities,
in pairs of opposites which cancel eachother out within the pleroma,
but can also manifest as tangible pairs of opposites in the active
world. This is not only seen as a primal abstracted reality, but as
something that pervades individuals as well, and so is present in
everything. He defines manifest things as part of the manifestations
of the pleroma, but at the same time distinct, because it itself is
infinite and undivided. As always, this can be equated to the more
abstract great will. Especially so in this instance, for reasons
detailed below.

**Principium Individuationis.** is a
term which suspiciously resembles his regular term individuation, and
shows the relation between the person and the pleroma. People come
out of it and become distinct. But this is not a full distinction.
People are said to still be in communion, which as this is a
religious text was meant to call to mind literal communions in
church, but why which he meant a balance between pure individuality
and loss of the self. Specifically, that people are both distinct and
related. They should not move towards a loss of individuality,
because this would nullify their existence. But at the same time,
striving for individuality would be seen as an equal flaw, due to the
fact that all life is related through the pleroma, calling to mind
the unus mundus. And that rather, people should strive to more
actively be
“themself”
coming to tune with their own reality. This is obviously very neutral
sounding in tone already, due to effectively stating to balance being
too individualitst or too collectivist, but becomes even more so
later on.

**God** is described as a creature, though a somewhat indistinct one, since it represents unity and
fullness and so is in a sense related to the pleroma (though not
fully). Since everything always comes in pairs of opposites,
god
is defined as inherently coming with a devil that counteracts it. God
is considered more related to the pleroma than the devil is, since
God is said to represent wholeness and unity. Likewise he also
represents goodness and creation.

**Devil**. Describing the relation
between God and
devil
can be used with these quotes from the text.

>Effective void is the nature of the
devil. God and devil are the first manifestations of nothingness,
which we call the pleroma. It is indifferent whether the pleroma is
or is not, since in everything it is balanced and void. Not so
creatura. (creatures) In so far as god and devil are creatura they do
not extinguish each other, but stand one against the other as
effective opposites. We need no proof of their existence. It is
enough that we must always be speaking of them. Even if both were
not, creatura, of its own essential distinctiveness, would forever
distinguish them anew out of the pleroma.

And here a quote specifying what they represent

>God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction.
Effectiveness is common to both. Effectiveness joineth them.
Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god,
since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness.

So you'll note here that he s saying
their literal existence in any tangible way is in a sense beside the point, since what matters is their
relation to you as archetypal ideas. This obviously works in tune with him seeing them as
internal archetypes rather than as literal distinct entities, but
while at the same time like other archetypes very real active
patterns in the world. Obviously this relates to the fact that in
game demons are embodiments of humans thoughts despite also ebing able to be tangible. They exist as
embodiment of ideals and things, but at the same time are related to
human minds. So their effects are seen as very real whether or not
they literally exist. Which in game they obviously do in some sense,
but at the same time are seen as metaphorically being archetypes.

Note that this idea closely relates to
some modern ideas such as cultural religion like cultural
christianity, and some le edgy satanist religions. The archetypal
form of what they consider an ideal guide is used as a symbol, though
they are often neutral about the existence of such things, saying
what matters is holding them as an ideal. Using archetypes of things
that may not literally exist is not new either. Stoics said that
their ideal of the sage may be a level of achievement that no one on
earth fully embodied. And of course ideas like this have showed up
historically in religion, though not as often since usually it was
seen as more literal. Although holding them as ideals to move towards
is not quite what jung himself upheld, his works are considered
relevant to modern philosophy of religion for this reason. (And also
unfortunately get used as a vague inspiration taken out of context
for new age beliefs. If you want to know why some new age beliefs
think they can just kind of think whatever they want and it becomes
true, one reason is taking Jung's ideas out of context.)

Note also the interesting fact that God
is seen as relating to the pleroma in a larger sense than the devil
does. Even though they both come from it. This can obviously relate
to the fact that in universe everything is in a sense a part of the
great will. Though YHVH is considered the one who more closely
embodies it, and lucifer says he is a piece of god that god threw
away. Likewise, the fact that god and the devil are seen as opposing
forces that will always counteract eachother obviously plays into how
they show up in game.

**Abraxas** is a name used in the past for a gnostic god which he uses with the phrase god above god to
define a manifestation and god of the pleroma itself.
Abraxas
is seen as the unity which all opposites come from. And where god and
the devil have opposing properties, abraxas has them both. Abraxas is
equated vaguely with life and reality itself, something that both
good and evil exist within, and so which he places as greater than
them. Abraxas is considered directly to be the god of the pleroma,
though still in a sense a creature. Abraxas in its relation to the
pleroma can also likewise be seen as the great will, and the source
from which all opposite come, but which “God” is closer to, since
God represents unity. Note here that in this description abraxas is
in itself both good and evil, being the thing that contains all
opposites. And so parallels where zayin notes in the remake that god
in its fullness is not “good,” but rather everything.

>God dwelleth behind the
sun,
the devil behind the night. What god bringeth forth out of the light
the devil sucketh into the night. But Abraxas is the world, its
becoming and its passing. Upon every gift that cometh from the
god-sun the devil layeth his curse.

Here you get a very eastern sounding
thing that sounds like a yin yang type of situation. Interestingly, in iva the role of satan and yhvh in game presents them as kind of entities who are above the interplay between chaos and order in a sense. With satan explicitly being described as embodying both. By that logic merkabah represents jung's idea of god, with the combined form and yhvh relating more to abraxas. Whether that was intentional or not being ambiguous.

**Other gods**. He also described
vaguely some other gods. The main ones after god, devil, and abraxas,
are
**eros**
which shows relation between things, and **the tree of life**, being a space for things to be
in. He also equates celestial gods with spirituality and earthly gods
with sensuality (said as sexuality, but in practice means all
physical interaction). He also ascribes to them expansion and
contraction, which likely comes from taoism's division between types
of spirits. He says that the gods are long lasting, while humans are
not. And humans come from the gods and go back to them, and even that
gods in a sense can manifest as humans. Meaning presumably forces and
archetypes in the world in general, and their manifestation In the
ego and self of individuals.

Note here that the tree of life here is
represented as neutral between God and the devil. A counterpoint from
kabbalah where its considered part of God, since he is representing
here a neutral system where these things both exist within it, albeit
God being slightly more primary. This obviously can tie to in II
where both the law and chaos sides have kabbalic imagery representing
them. (And of course in kabbalah, the tree of life is said to exist
everywhere, existing uniquely in each world). Jung obviously knew
about the kabbalah a significant amount, (though its uncertain to
what depth) so this relation is likely deliberate.

**Polytheism**. Jung thought that since gods represent different aspects of the psyche that monotheism was a mistaken view, that should be replaced with a polytheistic one. Since monotheism is too limited in scope.

**Spirituality**. Interestingly enough,
he identifies god as the good, but explicitly declines saying it is
necessary to worship, saying that being the good nothing can be added
to it by doing so. Which does seem to contradict that in practice
jung thought that prayer was a useful mental tool, by turning the
beyond and one's spiritual purpose into an immediate reality. (Unless
he is drawing a distinction between prayer and worship, as is known
to be done from time to time). Likewise, he says (quote below) that
one should not seek to move towards the good in a monistic fashion,
but rather to actualize the self. Likewise, the devil is identified
with evil, but is not seen as evil in the sense one thinks of, but
rather more like selfishness. Something necessary in small doses for
individuation, but which should be kept in check. And so balance
between them is seen as necessary to cause individuation which is a
balance
between the good, but having individuality. This parallels many of
the games closely obviously, especially IV which identifies law with
the term spirit of goodwill, and refers to lucifer with spirit of
spite. On the surface this sounds like good and evil, yet on neutral
the goal is a balance between them, and a statement that humans
should actualize humanity rather than moving to that they see as
good. Which means that jungian spirituality is not only very neutral
in tone, but the fact that neutral in game tends to define itself as
being more humanistic and without the spirits in active manifestation
like on chaos this makes this connected in a second way. So this is
likely deliberate, due to the fact that overt jungian elements are
heavy in the series as a whole, more obviously so in persona.

Note that his description of not moving
to the good here isn't meant to be described as an excuse to be bad,
but rather in a sense acceptance rather than denial of the shadow,
and avoiding of obsessive unbalanced things which are not really good
when taken too far.

>When we strive after the good or
the beautiful, we thereby forget our own nature, which is
distinctiveness, and we are delivered over to the qualities of the
pleroma, which are pairs of opposites. We labor to attain to the good
and the beautiful, yet at the same time we also lay hold of the evil
and the ugly, since in the pleroma these are one with the good and
the beautiful. When, however, we remain true to our own nature, which
is distinctiveness, we distinguish ourselves from the good and the
beautiful, and, therefore, at the same time, from the evil and the
ugly. And thus we fall not into the pleroma, namely, into nothingness
and dissolution.

**Humanity** is defined as a gateway in
which the gods of the outer world come into the inner world. In this
sense this seems to parralel his claim that the archetypes exist in
the world at large, and manifest as images of myth in the human mind.
Man is described however as a microcosm of the world at large, and
having the pleroma and abraxas within him. This closely relates to
the idea of brahman in hinduism in which the goal is realizing that
one ultimately is brahman.
In this sense, “God” is defined as the goal of man, but as a
microcosm of the whole, this goal is ultimately said to be within
man, and thus the goal is self actualization and understanding one's
place in the world, and relation with it. Likewise, in I, lao tsu
vaguely talks about the tao, which since the great will is loosely
related to the tao as well, implying they are in some sense the same
thing, can be neutral talking about its own relation to it in general
in a similar way to how jung sees one seeing one's self in relation
with the pleroma without the active need to worship “God.” (Or
for the terms he usually used, collective unconscious or unus
mundus.)

## Alignments

When jung wrote his own spiritual text, a heavy theme was
about how god existed as the embodiment of pro social and orderly
tendencies, and the devil as personal ones. And that for growth as a
person one needs to recognize and balance these influences. Mainline
obviously is based heavily on that overall dynamic, as stated above. However, there's an additional aspect to this. Jung himself equated
demons to the shadow side. The internal aspects of people that they
didn't want to admit. And this likewise happens explicitly in SMTIV.
Lucifer on neutral directly refers to demons as shadows. And lilith and the
white in the same game talk about humanity trying to ignore the demonic
half of them. And in dsj yellow eyes are used to represent chaos same as
 they are for shadows. Note how most of this shows up more explicitly in
 IV.

That provides some interesting context for the sides. If the demonic
half is the half that people are as a standard, not generally acknowledging, that is the chaotic
half. Which means that the orderly half is closer to the half they do
acknowledge. This is also reflected in why the gods on the law side are
ones who maintain godly form, being depicted as what humans think their
ideals are. While chaos gods are depicted as demons. Law gods are more commonly the gods who are actually worshiped, embodying the persona side of the psyche, though some exceptions do exist.

This shows something about ordinary neutral society. The games tend to begin in a pre-existing neutral society. But this society is often depicted as in a dubious state. Something that even neutral endings seek to overcome. This has to do in a sense with the same drive in persona of reflecting a lack of having yet faced the shadow side. Namely that it identifies as altruistic and nice, and tries to cover up the self
interested aspect. But it is not really as altruistic as it self identifies as. Neutral society doesn't want to be law, yet it
 denies that it has a chaotic aspect. Its not that it thinks it is law,
but more that it doesn't yet quite grasp that law exists as a separate
thing from normal neutral.

What this goes to show is a bit about what the different endings
actually are, and how they reflect this truth. For neutral itself, what
is happening is ironically similar to what happens in persona. Which is
hardly surprising considering that in the persona games it more or less takes the range of neutral ideology as a given for the dynamic the games use as a basis. The different
paths in mainline however are all in a sense analogues for different reactions to the
acknowledgement of one's shadow.

Neutral endings are in a sense about acknowledging this shadow side,
and moving forward from there. This actually shows what is
differentiated from the past and the future, even though the games imply
 that society in the past was neutral as well. Basically its the same
thing that happens in persona, but presented as now hopefully on a
societal level. The past was not self aware about the existence of its
shadow. It denied it, although it was still present. But the future will
 be more self aware about its existence, and the need to live while
acknowledging these darker aspects. This is presented as a diminished
focus on identifying with exclusively lawful gods, since now people no
longer see those as the main basis of their own lives. But rather a
single pole of a dualistic paradigm.

This also contextualizes law and chaos as actual paths. All three
endings are about being more self aware about acknowledging the
ramifications of the shadow aspect, and so reacting to it in different
ways. And all three contrast against the denial of it that one is moving
 forward from. Law is about recognizing the reality of just how far a
change it would really be to live in a world where those shadow aspects
were really entirely overcome and in a sense purged. It wouldn't look like a
neutral world, because acknowledged or not, ordinary existence is
interwoven with this heavily self oriented focus. Truly lacking those
qualities that people often claim to lack by not identifying with would
actually seem rather alien, and not like normal people.

Chaos of course goes the other direction. It is the choice of
acknowledging your darker self oriented desires, and rather than denying
 them or pacifying them it is about choosing to identify with them
directly, and choosing to live the life they lead towards. Note of course that the law and chaos paths have tones that are a bit post-jungian, advocating for things that recontextualize the works of jung, focusing on the archetypes and goals in different ways.

This overall paradigm of course explains why law gods are mostly
composed of gods who are the ones who are seen more positively in real
life, and even implied to have been in-game before the events happened,
and yet by the end of the games it seems they are treated similarly to
chaotic figures by the neutral side. Because among other things,
although the selfish aspect of neutral already existed, the actual path
is about acknowledging its existence. And so realizing that one is not
as in tune with these gods of order as they once thought. Which implies
that in the past, neutral actually revered these lawful gods more. Which
 makes sense, since that is why they have godly forms in-game, whereas
chaos demons tend not to. This is not a universal truth, since the games
 imply that in the ancient world chaos ones had more power. So societal
trends changed. This shift does not entail rejecting all orderly gods however, but rather accepting more a balance, (and the ones who ideologically allow this balance) similar to how jung advocated a focus on both the god and devil figures.

This is also seen in the evolution of the characters of different
alignments. Chaos ones often reach a point where they acknowledge their
own hidden desires, and seek to be true to them. Law ones often reach a point
where they realize that true law goes much further than the normal law
oriented actions, and that the shadows have to actually be overcome. And
 likewise, neutral characters in many games are shown to be indecisive,
often not even understanding their own desires or goals. In this case
this is still reflecting the non-self-aware form of neutral, rather than
 the self aware form. This doesn't mean that only neutral can be
indecisive, but that its using indecisive neutral as like a baseline for
 what already existed. And so you ideally if you go neutral are the more
 self aware neutral. The analogue of one who realizes and accepts the
existence of the shadow. Sometimes neutral characters are depicted as indecisive to contrast the main character being the decisive version of they go neutral.

Obviously this is meant to be more general than them depicting it as
exact. Because not everyone has the same shadows, and what the shadows
are of any given society aren't necessarily always the same. So looking
at it from the Jungian angle alone wouldn't fully explain for instance,
the ideology of the sides. But these things are meant to overlap
heavily. Its like an individual process reflected in a societal change.