The origins and history of consciousness
Book - 2014
The origins and history of consciousness draws on a full range of world mythology to show how individual consciousness undergoes the same archetypal stages of development as human consciousness as a whole. Erich Neumann was one of C.G. Jung's most creative students and a renowned practitioner of analytical psychology in his own right. In this influential book, Neumann shows how the stages begin and end with the symbol of the Uroboros, the tail-eating serpent. The intermediate stages are projected in the universal myths of the World Creation, Great Mother, Separation of the World Parents, Birth of the Hero, Slaying of the Dragon, Rescue of the Captive, and Transformation and Deification of the Hero. Throughout the sequence, the Hero is ...the evolving ego consciousness. Featuring a foreword by Jung, this 'Princeton Classics' edition introduces a new generation of readers to this eloquent and enduring work.
- Subjects
- Published
-
Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press
2014.
- Language
- English
German - Main Author
- Edition
- First Princeton Classics edition
- Physical Description
- xxiv, 493 pages, 28 pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 447-460) and index.
- ISBN
- 9780691163598
- Translator's Note
- Note of Acknowledgment
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I. The Mythological Stages in the evolution of Consciousness
- A. The Creation Myth
- I. The Uroboros
- II. The Great Mother
- III. The Separation of the World Parents: The Principle of Opposites
- B. The Hero Myth
- I. The Birth of the Hero
- II. The Slaying of the Mother
- III. The Slaying of the Father
- C. The Transformation Myth
- I. The Captive and the Treasure
- II. Transformation, or Osiris
- Part II. The Psychological Stages in the Development of Personality
- A. The Original Unity
- Centroversion and Ego Formation
- The Ego Germ in the Original Uroboric Situation
- Development of the Ego out of the Uroboros
- Centroversion in Organisms on the Uroboric Level
- Centroversion, Ego, and Consciousness
- Further Phases of Ego Development
- B. The Separation of the Systems
- Centroversion and Differentiation
- The Fragmentation of Archetypes
- Exhaustion of Emotional Components: Rationalization
- Secondary Personalization
- The Transformation of Pleasure-Pain Components
- The Formation of Authorities within the Personality
- The Synthetic Function of the Ego
- C. The Balance and Crisis of Consciousness
- Compensation of the Separated Systems: Culture in Balance
- The Schism of the Systems: Culture in Crisis
- D. Centroversion and the Stages of Life
- Prolongation of Childhood and Differentiation of Consciousness
- Activation of Collective Unconscious and Ego Changes in Puberty
- Self-Realization of Centroversion in the Second Half of Life
- Appendices
- I. The Group and the Great Individual
- II. Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivization
- Bibliography
- Index