The Origins and History of Consciousness

by Neumann, Erich; Hull, R. F. C.

• ISBN13: 9780691017617
• ISBN10: 0691017611
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-18
• Publisher: Bollingen Foundation

Summary

The first of Erich Neumann's works to be translated into English, this eloquent book draws on a full range of world mythology to show that individual consciousness undergoes the same archetypal stages of development as has human consciousness as a whole. Neumann, one of Jung's most creative students and a renowned practitioner of analytical psychology in his own right, shows how the stages begin and end with the symbol of the Uroboros, or 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.

Author Biography

Erich Neumann, born in Berlin in 1905, lived in Tel Aviv from 1934 until his death in 1960. Among his other works in Princeton's Bollingen series are "Fear of the Feminine, Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine, The Great Mother," and "The Acrchtypal World of Henry Moore."

Table of Contents

Translator's Note
Note of Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Introduction
The Mythological Stages in the Evolution of Consciousness
The Creation Myth
The Uroboros	p. 5
The Great Mother	p. 39
The Separation of the World Parents: The Principle of Opposites	p. 102
The Hero Myth
The Birth of the Hero	p. 131
The Slaying of the Mother	p. 152
The Slaying of the Father	p. 170
The Transformation Myth
The Captive and the Treasure	p. 195
Transformation, or Osiris	p. 220
The Psychological Stages in the Development of Personality
The Original Unity
Centroversion and Ego Formation	p. 261
The Ego Germ in the Original Uroboric Situation	p. 266
Development of the Ego out of the Uroboros	p. 275
Centroversion in Organisms on the Uroboric Level	p. 286
Centroversion, Ego, and Consciousness	p. 293
Further Phases of Ego Development	p. 306
The Separation of the Systems
Centroversion and Differentiation	p. 315
The Fragmentation of Archetypes	p. 320
Exhaustion of Emotional Components: Rationalization	p. 321
Secondary Personalization	p. 335
The Transformation of Pleasure-Pain Components	p. 342
The Formation of Authorities within the Personality	p. 349
The Synthetic Function of the Ego	p. 356
The Balance and Crisis of Consciousness
Compensation of the Separated Systems: Culture in Balance	p. 363
The Schism of the Systems: Culture in Crisis	p. 381
Centroversion and the Stages of Life
Prolongation of Childhood and Differentiation of Consciousness	p. 397
Activation of Collective Unconscious and Ego Changes in Puberty	p. 407
Self-Realization of Centroversion in the Second Half of Life	p. 409
App. I The Group and the Great Individual	p. 421
App. II Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivization	p. 436
Bibliography	p. 445
Index	p. 461
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.