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The collective unconscious may not merely be a specific consciousness common to all people, as suggested by Jung, but rather a universal shared consciousness mostly detached from and inaccessible to the waking consciousness. At some point there was a breech, a schism, that divided the collective unconscious in half, and a disparity was created. This phenomenon is known as the static. These two halves have many manifestations, such as gender (perhaps even sex), Eros and Thanatos, and other such dualistic and diametrically opposed phenomena. The split was not clean and distinct – the two halves each bear certain properties to a given degree, but the they also each bear the properties of the other, but to a lesser degree.

This principle is seen in the concept of Yin and Yang, which also corresponds to the Animus in females, and the Anima in males; also perhaps in more macrocosmic concepts such as chaos and order. As chaos theory suggests, chaos exists within a system of order which exists within a system of chaos, and so on, conceivably ad infinitum. Jung has said (or at least implied) that Anima and Animus operate in the same way – that for example, a man driven by his Anima may find that there is an underlying Animus function within that, i.e. Animus within Anima within man. The breech between the two halves of the universal consciousness may be the origin of conflict; the UC in a constant state of change, shifting and changing in its attempt to reconcile the disparity between its two halves.

Change manifests in creation (Eros/Libido) and destruction (Thanatos/Destrudo), which are diametrically opposed yet self-same principles. The infinitely nested microcosm exists within these principles as well, that is, there is a creative drive within destruction, and a destructive drive within creation. As mentioned, the split was not clean, and perhaps can be said to be “jagged”, just to extend the analogy. Therefore where attempts are made to reunite, there must be alignment, else there is conflict. Often the attempt to reconcile is one of force, like trying to jam a puzzle piece into the wrong place, and this only sustains the conflict.

This schism is what Jung thought was represented by the concept of Original Sin, that is, the advent of “consciousness”. Indeed there is a schism here, as this is the point when there became a distinction between “unconsciousness” and “consciousness” – which should be understood not as opposites, but two different forms of the same phenomenon. Human “intelligence”, then, is both the result of, and the attempt to reconcile the schism; all of our complex machinations may to us seem so “advanced”, so “productive”, but it seems that by indulging our intellects we are sustaining the schism.

Upon the dawn of consciousness there was conflict, an inherent a priori understanding of the schism, manifesting in many ways, not the least of which is anxiety; we strive so fervently to “make sense” of our world, to “know our purpose”, not realizing that such things as “sense” and “purpose” are only relevant within this state of divided consciousness. A reunification with the UC is not something that can be achieved easily. Our intellects may allow us to survive against the disparity, but as they are products of the disparity itself, they are not the solution. “Recollection” or what Plato called “rationalization” may instead be the answer, drawing from the a priori understanding of our existence, before the disparity became too great, which even infants better grasp (and thus why they may be so naturally joyful).

Perhaps the schism goes deeper still, creating the very fabric of reality as conscious beings perceive it. Perhaps the “physical world”, as the subjective idealists suggest, is merely a collection of sense data, i.e. an illusion of perception. The physical world, like the “beings” that perceive it, may come into being from certain existential wave patterns manifesting from the static. It may only be a side effect of “consciousness”.

At least all of the complexity of the human world is a result of the schism – static within the universal consciousness that separates us into discrete individuals preoccupied with individual concerns rather than operating harmoniously as a unified macrocosm; all of humanity’s so called “intelligence” is merely an adaptation to the “problems” caused by intelligence – as a manifestation of the schism – in the first place. We have distorted the world, and those who have learned to adapt are deemed the “fittest”, or the “most intelligent”. Were we to somehow eliminate the underlying problem, that is, the “problem of consciousness”, then “intelligence” would become obsolete.