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diana_eveline's review against another edition
5.0
“Consciousness = deliverance: that is the watchword inscribed above all man’s efforts to deliver himself from the embrace of the primordial uroboric dragon. Once the ego sets itself up as center and establishes itself in its own right as ego consciousness, the original situation is forcibly broken down.”
A fantastic work by Neumann that takes the reader into the depths of the human psyche through psychological and mythological analysis of our history and people. Based on theories by Jung, Freud and others, Neumann has managed to lay out the struggle of the ego as it develops through the birth of the Hero, the slaying of the Mother, slaying of the Father and the capturing of the treasure. He shows us that consciousness is not just deliverance but is also setting up for entirely new challenges, as the world around us becomes real and has more of an impact on us.
The journey starts abstract, with psychological concepts being extracted from the use of myths and symbolism in Ancient Egypt but also in Greek mythology. It is fascinating to see how early on people had become quite skilled at expressing the struggle of consciousness. Neumann puts very old myths in an entirely now light, showing what they truly say about people's beliefs but also about our journey from the unconscious to the realm of consciousness. He uses Jung's archetypes to demonstrate how and what we could be, not who we need to be. Neumann shows that the archetype isn't just something old but transcendent. It is not something to tie us down but something to help us learn from the past, understand the present and make the future.
In the final part of the book, Neumann takes everything that he has explained about developing consciousness and shows his take on what this says about our modern society. In his opinion, consciousness is something we should strive for but not at the cost of losing touch with our unconscious side, as these two make us into a transpersonal being. Because our western society has favoured rational reasoning, consciousness has been placed above the unconscious, which could entail us missing out on some truly meaningful discoveries. In other words, our favouring disposition to rational reasoning is thriving at the expense of our instincts and feelings. Too much of this, according to Neumann, is quite damaging to society as well as the ego itself.
This book has taught me so much about the psychology, the mind, mythology and transcendent human culture and knowledge. There is, of course, so much more to it than I could possibly put in this review and I can hardly do it justice but perhaps that is one of the reasons it is such a good book. This is a new favourite of mine and likely will be for a while. It will, I imagine, also be something I will revisit often.
A fantastic work by Neumann that takes the reader into the depths of the human psyche through psychological and mythological analysis of our history and people. Based on theories by Jung, Freud and others, Neumann has managed to lay out the struggle of the ego as it develops through the birth of the Hero, the slaying of the Mother, slaying of the Father and the capturing of the treasure. He shows us that consciousness is not just deliverance but is also setting up for entirely new challenges, as the world around us becomes real and has more of an impact on us.
The journey starts abstract, with psychological concepts being extracted from the use of myths and symbolism in Ancient Egypt but also in Greek mythology. It is fascinating to see how early on people had become quite skilled at expressing the struggle of consciousness. Neumann puts very old myths in an entirely now light, showing what they truly say about people's beliefs but also about our journey from the unconscious to the realm of consciousness. He uses Jung's archetypes to demonstrate how and what we could be, not who we need to be. Neumann shows that the archetype isn't just something old but transcendent. It is not something to tie us down but something to help us learn from the past, understand the present and make the future.
In the final part of the book, Neumann takes everything that he has explained about developing consciousness and shows his take on what this says about our modern society. In his opinion, consciousness is something we should strive for but not at the cost of losing touch with our unconscious side, as these two make us into a transpersonal being. Because our western society has favoured rational reasoning, consciousness has been placed above the unconscious, which could entail us missing out on some truly meaningful discoveries. In other words, our favouring disposition to rational reasoning is thriving at the expense of our instincts and feelings. Too much of this, according to Neumann, is quite damaging to society as well as the ego itself.
This book has taught me so much about the psychology, the mind, mythology and transcendent human culture and knowledge. There is, of course, so much more to it than I could possibly put in this review and I can hardly do it justice but perhaps that is one of the reasons it is such a good book. This is a new favourite of mine and likely will be for a while. It will, I imagine, also be something I will revisit often.
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