The Origins And History Of Consciousness (International Library of Psychology)

On this account we prefer to call the sub-man who dwells in us moderns the “mass man” rather than the “group man,” because his psychology differs in essential respects from that of the latter. Although the genuine group man is for the most part unconscious, he nevertheless lives under the rule of centroversion; he is a psychic whole in which powerf

which expresses itself in mass-mindedness, in the atomization and conscious internationalization of the individual.

regardless of conflicting national ideologies, every modern consciousness is confronted with that of other nations and races and with other

Self-formation, whose effects in the second half of life Jung has termed “individuation,” 50 has its critical developmental pattern not only in the first half of life, but also back in childhood. The growth of consciousness and of the ego is

mass, let alone to a relationship of the participants with one another.

This unconscious mass component is opposed to consciousness and the world of culture. It resists conscious development, is irrational and emotional, anti-individual and destructive. It corresponds mythologically to the negative aspect of the Great Mother—it is her murderous accomplice, the adversary and man-slaying boar. This negative, unconscious

But the “voice,” that inward orientation which makes known the utterances of the self, will never speak in a disintegrated personality, in a bankrupt consciousness, and in a fragmented psychic system.

largely governed by this pattern. The stability of the ego, i.e., its ability to stand firm against the disintegrative tendencies of the unconscious and the world, is developed very early, as is also the trend toward extension of consciousness, which is likewise an important prerequisite for self-formation.

cultures, other economic patterns, religions, and systems of value. In this way the original group psychology and the cultural canon determining it, once taken for granted, become relativized and profoundly disturbed.