Erich Neumann

Neumann examines how the Feminine has been experienced and expressed in many cultures from prehistory to our own time. Appearing as goddess and demon, gate and pillar, garden and tree, hovering sky and containing vessel, the Feminine is seen as an essential factor in the dialectical relation of individual consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the ungraspable matrix, symbolized by the Great Mother. Erich Neumann,was a psychologist, philosopher, writer, and student of Carl Jung. Career Neumann was born in Berlin to a Jewish family.He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1927 and then continued to study medicine at the University of Berlin, where he acquired his first degree in medicine in 1933. In 1934 Neumann and his wife Julia, who had been Zionists since they were teenagers, moved to Tel Aviv.For many years, he regularly returned to Zürich, Switzerland to give lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute. He also lectured frequently in England, France and the Netherlands, and was a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and president of the Israel Association of Analytical Psychologists. He practiced analytical psychology in Tel Aviv from 1934 until his death from kidney cancer in 1960.Contributions Neumann contributed to the field of developmental psychology and the psychology of consciousness and creativity. He had a theoretical and philosophical approach to analysis, contrasting with the more clinical concern in England and the United States. His most valuable contribution to psychology was the empirical concept of "centroversion", a synthesis of extra- and introversion. However, he is best known for his theory of feminine development, a theory formulated in numerous publications, most notably The Great Mother. His works also elucidate the way mythology throughout history reveals aspects of the development of consciousness that are parallel in both the individual and society as a whole. Jordan B. Peterson: Erich Neumann is the most well-regarded student, analyst & distiller of Carl Jung's work.

Four essays on the psychological aspects of art. ---A study of Leonardo treats the work of art, and art itself, not as ends in themselves, but rather as instruments of the artist's inner situation. ---Two other essays discuss the relation of art to its epoch and specifically the relation of modern art to our own time. ---An essay on Chagall views this artist in the context of the problems explored in the other studies. Jordan B. Peterson: Erich Neumann is the most well-regarded student, analyst & distiller of Carl Jung's work.

These essays by the famous analytical psychologist and student of creativity Erich Neumann belong in the context of the depth psychology of culture and reveal a prescient concern about the one-sidedness of patriarchal Western civilization. Neumann recommended a "cultural therapy" that he thought would redress a "fundamental ignorance" about feminine and masculine psychology, and he looked for societal healing to a "matriarchal consciousness" that forms the bridge between the feminine and the creative. Brought together here for the first time in English, the essays in the book discuss the psychological stages of woman's development, the moon and matriarchal consciousness, Mozart's Magic Flute, the meaning of the earth archetype for modern times, and the fear of the feminine. In Mozart's fantastic world, Neumann saw a true Auseinandersetzung - the conflict and coming-to-terms with each other of the matriarchal and patriarchal worlds. Developing such a synthesis of the feminine and the masculine in the psychic reality of the individual and of the collective was, he argued, one of the fundamental, future-oriented tasks of both the society and the individual.

This selection of essays by one of C. G. Jung's favorite and most creative students explores important connections between analytical psychology and the study of literature and art. Jordan B. Peterson: Erich Neumann is the most well-regarded student, analyst & distiller of Carl Jung's work.

The modern world has witnessed a dramatic breakthrough of the dark, negative forces of human nature. The "old ethic," which pursued an illusory perfection by repressing the dark side, has lost its power to deal with contemporary problems. Erich Neumann was convinced that the deadliest peril now confronting humanity lay in the "scapegoat" psychology associated with the old ethic. We are in the grip of this psychology when we project our own dark shadow onto an individual or group identified as our "enemy," failing to see it in ourselves. The only effective alternative to this dangerous shadow projection is shadow recognition, acknowledgement, and integration into the totality of the self. Wholeness, not perfection, is the goal of the new ethic. Jordan B. Peterson: Erich Neumann is the most well-regarded student, analyst & distiller of Carl Jung's work.

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. Wikipedia discussion: Jordan B. Peterson**: Erich Neumann is the most well-regarded student, analyst & distiller of Carl Jung's work.

C. G. Jung and Erich Neumann first met in 1933, at a seminar Jung was conducting in Berlin. Jung was fifty-seven years old and internationally acclaimed for his own brand of psychotherapy. Neumann, twenty-eight, had just finished his studies in medicine. The two men struck up a correspondence that would continue until Neumann's death in 1960. A lifelong Zionist, Neumann fled Nazi Germany with his family and settled in Palestine in 1934, where he would become the founding father of analytical psychology in the future state of Israel. This book looks at the development of Jung's psychological theories from the 1930s onward as well as the emerging self-confidence of his most talented student. Neumann was one of the few correspondence partners of Jung's who was able to challenge him intellectually and personally. These letters shed light on not only Jung's political attitude toward Nazi Germany, his alleged anti-Semitism, and his psychological theory of fascism, but also his understanding of Jewish psychology and mysticism. They affirm Neumann's importance as a leading psychologist of his time and paint a fascinating picture of the psychological impact of immigration on the German Jewish intellectuals who settled in Palestine and helped to create the state of Israel.