Erich Neumann (1905–1960)

I really wanted to read this book...but there was (and still is) a problem.
I don't have the necessary background to read it. I have not read a single book by Jung and have read very little in the way of analytical psychology.

So I ventured and...nothing happened.
I except hyper-specialized language plus many references to other works that were absolutely needed to understand the text. I excepted a dense, impenetrable, indescribable, eldrich labyrinth.

What I got instead was a short down to earth book about ethics.

In order to understand this book, you have to a degree having lived it, or living it.
The problem of opposites, shadow and ego, good and evil, is something that is brought down from the heavens and down to earth. Is something that you experience daily.

I had this kind of insane struggle against my shadow, I didn't want to give in. I wanted to strive for that perfection...but every day the situation became worse. "For how much can I resist?" was frequent though "I have to give in, I have. This is a living hell."
And yet what would happen if I would give in? The same situation in reverse. Opposites can't be completely disintegrated. I would have to strive toward reaching my ego again.

This book explains why this reasoning is wrong. It gives you a third and more healthy way of living.

On a side note I read that some people have not understood what the book was saying about the shadow and in bringing it to reality; I quote the book directly.
"Man learns more than simply to live on tolerable terms with himself; he must actually learn to live with his sin-though this, of course, must not be misunderstood as meaning to live "in" his sin.

Great book I will read it again in the future; when I will be better read in this field of stud
… (mere)

I've been studying the myth of Cupid and Psyche, and this is the best book I've found so far to dig into the deeper levels of the story as found in Apuleius.

In the beginning I was sceptical about what a man writing in the early 1950's might have to say about the "development of the feminine" -- but Neumann's interpretation of the mythic elements of the story seemed right on target. He also avoided the trap many other authors have fallen into; rather than creating a moralistic story by tweaking the original tale or omitting key elements in order to force it to conform to a particular paradigm of spiritual growth, he grapples with the story in its entirety.

Even if a person did not agree with his specific, Jungian interpretation, Neumann does provide an excellent example of how a myth can yield deeper meaning by looking at each act and each character or figure as more than it first appears.… (mere)

I love and hate this work. All at the same time and for some of the same reasons simultaneously.

Why? Because it pre-dates a lot of Joseph Campbell's much more interesting and more carefully analyzed use of mythology. The subject matter is the same in a lot of ways, using the analysis of myth to understand what is going on inside us as individuals, but his conclusions are Pure BS.

Look, I know it's easy to sit here and review massively impressive works that feel like a direct-line inheritance from Carl Jung, full of glorious archetypes and VERY impressive scholarship, and let me be clear: I have no problems with the scholarship. The bibliography and the erudition are beyond reproach.

What I have a problem with is something pretty simple. His thesis has no antithesis.

Backing up, the whole idea here is that human consciousness arose from the conflicts between the female and male principles. It's very Jungian but I think Neumann takes it a bit farther. His full analysis is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS from the perspective of Fantasy Worldbuilding. I'd buy and read the hell out of a heroic series of books that expounded everything in here... as long as the FINAL CONCLUSIONS were re-analyzed.

Practically EVERY SINGLE IDEA in here propagates the idea that women, or rather, the World Mother, is the Dragon, the great Oroborus, and that all myth continues this trend all the way down to the overthrow of the female. From ALL the myths of castration to the extrapolation of the Furies as the ubermyth from which all our legends stem, justifies the patriarchy.

Where's the devil's advocate, here? A little lip service saying that men are spurred on and challenged by the female principle and women are spurred on and challenged by the male principle?

So what? Freud had been around for generations by this point. And at the end of the 40's, we should have gotten a little bit beyond this. But wait, it's the 40's and WWII was still fresh on everyone's minds.

I appreciate the attempt to analyze the models of our subconscious reliance on all the models that now seem broken and I LOVED the rich, rich, rich mythology and even the attempted thesis, but there's no serious counter-argument going on here. And there are TONS of possible counter-arguments.

Do I really need to write a book on this book? Suffice to say, WOMEN AREN'T EVIL. Let's leave it at that. Sheesh.… (mere)

A great text by Princeton Classics that touches on archetypes, Jung, theorists, and much more. There is a lot in here and the scope of this text is immense and should serve as an incredible amount of intellectual material for those to devour. I am one of the belief that it is important to understand the history and foundations of something to a great extent before delving further and this book accomplishes all that and more. Incredibly interesting and still, I believe, important to this date for what it tried to accomplish, this is a classic for the modern age.

4.5 stars- DEFINITELY recommended.… (mere)