The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
The uroboros, traceable in all epochs and cultures, then appears as the latest symbol of individual psychic development, signifying the roundedness of the psyche, life’s wholeness, and perfection regained. It is the place of transfiguration and illumination (illus. 11 ),of finality, as well as the place of mythological origination. Thus the Great R
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the ego has to absorb essential portions of the cultural past transmitted to it by the canon of values embodied in its own culture and system of education.
Erich Neumann • The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
The perfection of that which rests in itself in no way contradicts the perfection of that which circles in itself. Although absolute rest is something static and eternal, unchanging and therefore without history, it is at the same time the place of origin and the germ cell of creativity. Living the cycle of its own life, it is the circular snake, t
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Creative evolution of ego consciousness means that, through a continuous process stretching over thousands of years, the conscious system has absorbed more and more unconscious contents and progressively extended its frontiers. Although from antiquity right down to recent times we see a new and differently patterned canon of culture continually sup
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THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPT to outline the archetypal stages in the development of consciousness is based on modern depth psychology.
Erich Neumann • The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
Unlike other possible and necessary methods of inquiry which consider the development of consciousness in relation to external environmental factors, our inquiry is more concerned with the internal, psychic, and archetypal factors which determine the course of that development.
Erich Neumann • The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
#[[Ego Psychology]] vs #[[Self Psychology]]
The structure of modern consciousness rests on this integration, and at each period of its development the ego has to absorb essential portions of the cultural past transmitted to it by the canon of values embodied in its own culture and system of education.
Erich Neumann • The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
Images and symbols have this advantage over the paradoxical philosophical formulations of infinite unity and unimaged wholeness, that their unity can be seen and grasped as a unity at one glance.
Erich Neumann • The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton Classics Book 9)
In the first part of our exposition—The Mythological Stages in the Evolution of Consciousness—the accent lies on the wide distribution of the mythological material, and on demonstrating the connections between the symbols and the various strata of conscious development. Only against this background can we understand the normal developments of the p
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