Émil Durkheim introduced the concept of collective consciousness into social sciences. In the book Division of Labor in Society (1893) he observes the development and evolution from primitive to civilized societies. He pays special attention to the relationship between the type of economy and the division of labor, on the one hand, and the kind of solidarity and morality is society, on the other hand. To explain this relationship, he introduces a division into two basic types of solidarity in society - "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity".

In societies of mechanical solidarity, the division of labor is very limited, societies consist of segments that are functionally the same, while kinship relations govern relations within and between segments. This way of life and work influence the creation of "collective consciousness" which is completely within the individual consciousness, so individuals blindly obey the opinion of the majority and live following traditional rules. Individuals, among themselves, have the same patterns of actions, emotions, and attitudes, so they do not form separate personalities.

A complex division of labor is developing in societies of organic solidarity, which appears with the emergence of civilization. Different experiences and functions in society lead to the creation of different personalities which leads to the rise in individualism. With the development of individualism, there comes a decline in the collective consciousness.

In the article ‘A Historian’s Thoughts on War Rumors’ (1921) historian Marc Bloch promotes the idea that historians, to understand how rumors start and spread, have to understand the collective consciousness of the people that they are researching.

In the books On Collective Memory (1925) and The Collective Memory (1950), Maurice Halbwachs, who was a follower of Durkheim, developed his theory of collective consciousness and collective memory. This theory brings the collective consciousness (mentality, needs, behaviors) in connection with production relations. In industrial societies, the hierarchical relationship of social classes becomes stable as different classes adopt different values ​​and ideals. These different group consciousnesses ensure the cohesion of the group and its continuity. The values ​​of the working class differ the most from the average values ​​in society. Collective memory is determined by social determinants. Collective memory is a social construct that changes throughout history, with social changes. Collective memory takes precedence over individual memory. He believes that collective memory differs between different classes and that the nobility knew best how to preserve memories of real events, the bourgeoisie subjected memory to utilitarian values, while the working class is indifferent to the past because it has inert behavior and changing composition. In societies of organic solidarity, a complex division of labor develops. Different experiences and functions in society lead to the creation of different personalities. 

George Gurvitch is best known for his sociological approach, which he called "dialectical hyper-empiricism". Gurvitch developed a similar division of the depth levels of total social phenomena to Durkheim. The highest levels are the most stable and easiest to observe and study, while collective consciousness, which occupies the deepest level, is the least stable and the most difficult to study.

       Lévi-Strauss' Structuralism and Collective Unconscious

Claude Lévi-Strauss, in the book The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), introduced his theoretical approach, which was based on the structural linguistics of Saussure. Lévi-Strauss' approach is also called structuralism, and it sees social structures similar to how Saussure sees linguistic structure. According to Lévi-Strauss anthropology studies the unconscious structures that underlie all cultural phenomena, and organizes those phenomena into types that express connections and relationships understandable only to scientists.

These structures are constructions of the analyst himself, reducing cultural phenomena to an unconscious common basis. The structures are built by combinations from the repertoire of ideas, and society can be explained as a set of codes whose forms are dictated by the structure of the human mind. The basis of all cultural phenomena is the unconscious teleology of the spirit, that’s why anthropology deals with the inventory of mental categories. Culture is a set of symbolic systems and as symbols are the basis of communication, the whole science of society, culture, and men is a communication theory. The world becomes meaningful only if it is structured, because symbols do not have an immanent meaning, but their meaning comes from their position inside the wider structure.

The human mind builds the entire world by dichotomization - from binary oppositions that man is consciously not aware of. The complex interactions of people and society are unconscious projections of the mind's binary logic. There is the necessity of rejecting the subject, society is a cybernetic communication machine. Culture and nature as basic binary oppositions, and the task of anthropology is to discover the neurophysiological foundations of how the unconscious brain works. Besides binary oppositions, there is also always a third element that forms a ternary structure, and this third element is always empty, ready to assume any meaning.

               Analytical Psychology and Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung’s methodological and theoretical approach to psychology is called analytical psychology. Analytical psychology studies the unconscious mind, but, unlike Freud’s psychoanalysis, analytical psychology sees the unconscious as not limited only to previously conscious content. In Jung’s theory, similar to Freud’s approach, the mind has a tripartite structure . For Jung conscious ego is identified with the conscious mind and awareness of the self. Its main function is to make an individual aware of their internal processes and the external world so they can adequately function on a daily basis.

Below and next to the conscious ego lies the personal unconscious, which refers to those thoughts, memories, experiences, and feelings that are unconscious but can be easily recalled to conscious awareness.  The third part of a mind’s tripartite structure, in Jung’s theory, is the collective unconsciousness. Collective unconscious is “transpersonal”, that is, shared by all people, unlike personal unconscious which is unique to each person. This transpersonal collective unconsciousness was developed over evolutionary and historic times, and it represents a reservoir of experiences and primordial images transmitted over generations.

Jung calls the most significant shared ideas or predispositions in the collective unconscious archetypes. Archetypes are emotionally charged universal images, thoughts, and symbols; and they have had a major role in the history of humankind, as well as playing a great role in people’s everyday lives. The most common and widespread archetypes are: the shadow, the anima/the animus, the persona, the self, and the hero. The shadow is the unconscious, instinctive, impulsive, infantile, negative, and undeveloped aspects of the ego and the personality. The anima and animus are concepts that reflect the psychological bisexuality of human nature, as every person possesses unconscious images that represent characteristic features and tendencies of the opposite sex. Anima are feminine and emotional aspects found in men, and animus are masculine and rational characteristics found in women. The persona represents someone's public personality, a mask that the ego assumes and is socially accepted, that is, the tendency of people to adopt the norms and social roles of the society that they live in. The hero represents an idealized picture that a person has of himself or herself.

                      Myths and Collective Consciousness

In the four-volume book Mythologiques (1964-1971) Lévi-Strauss' refines his structuralist approach to myths. For him, any myth is a projected manifestation of the deep structures existing in the human mind. The elements of myths, which he calls mythemes (analogous to the phonemes in linguistics), are part of a larger system, and can only gain their meaning from how they are combined and not from their intrinsic value, or from some external reality. Myths represent the minds of the people who created them. Myths, although constantly going through a transformation, resist history because they are eternal. All versions of a myth follow the essential structure of a myth.  Myths are always the product of a contradiction (unchanging constant of human existence) and those contradictions are the ones that generate myths. Lévi-Strauss believed that myth constitutes a third level of language, after langue and parole, and in this myths are the synthesis of the diachronic and the synchronic sides of language.

Mircae Eliade’s theoretical approach to religion, which is laid out in two important books: The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954), and The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (1959a), was inspired by Jung’s theory of collective unconsciousness. Eliade states that the focus of religious studies should be on the origin and function of religion. The origin and function of religion, according to Eliade, is to enable adherents to make contact with God. Eliade acknowledges that the meaning of most religious symbols is unconscious. The source of religion is a yearning for an encounter with God. The „sacred“ are places and times that religion provides to the believer so she or he can have an encounter with God. God is more likely to appear where it appeared before and that's why, even if a god is omnipresent, believers will go to the religious site to seek out God. Cosmogonies or myths of creation are specifically important because God was closest to people during or after creation. These myths serve to transport believers to the time of the creation so they can be close to God. Cosmogonies are supreme manifestations of divinity and creativity, and religious man wants to be „in statu nascendi“, or when the world was born.

Books:

Durkheim. Division Of Labor In Society (2014, in French 1893);

    -     The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method (2014, in French 1895); 

    -     Suicide, a Study in Sociology (2007, in French 1897);

    -     Primitive Classification (1967, in French 1902);

    -     The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (2012, in French 1912);

Eliade.The Myth of the Eternal Return (1954);

   -    The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (1959a);

Gurvitch. The Spectrum of Social Time (1958);

    -     Dialectique et sociologie (1962);

    -     The Social Frameworks of Knowledge (1971, in French 1966);

Halbwachs. The Causes of Suicide (1978, in French 1930);

    -     On Collective Memory (1992, in French 1950);

    -     Psychology of Social Class (2021, in Franch 1942).

Lévi-Strauss. The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949).