The Origins and History of Consciousness

A prominent psychologist, knitting together the elements of Jung's psychological theory & some new elements of his own, shows how the great cycles of world myth depict the hard-won development of ego-consciousness in humanity & how this development is recapitulated in each individual's life. Jung's ideas were much more popular than they are now. In this era of cognitive science & its focus on the physiological underpinnings of psychology, there doesn't seem to be room for the collective unconscious, its archetypes & their polymorphous manifestations in myth & symbol. But this is more a matter of fashion than any reflection on the quality of Jung's thinking, which was vast, deep & bold. Neumann, with erudition comparable to that of his teacher, synthesizes Jung's ideas into a unified theory of psychology around his own new concept of "centroversion", his name for the integrative force of the organism--its survival instinct in the widest sense. He shows how ego-consciousness--the self-aware "I" of the modern human being--is the preeminent organ of centroversion, & that, like other, physical, organs, it has had its own evolutionary history. This history, reflected in the structure & behavior of the modern ego, forms the deep story underlying world mythology. In Part I of the book, Neumann shows how the birth & emancipation of the ego is reflected in three great cycles of myth: the creation myth, the hero myth & what he calls the transformation myth, which is the apotheosis of the hero. The primordial mythological image is that of the "uroboros"--the serpent biting its own tail, symbolizing the womblike plenum of the unconscious, in which consciousness exists only as a potential. It flickers in & out of existence, almost like the virtual particles of modern nuclear physics. As the germ of consciousness gains strength, it comes to see the nurturing womb of the unconscious in the symbol of the Great Mother. The moment of the ego's realization of its own autonomous existence is mythologized as the Separation of the World Parents--a universal motif, in which the hero creates the manifest world by pushing his parents apart to form Heaven & Earth. Next come the hero myths: the birth of the hero & his struggle with the dragon, which represents the negative aspects of both Mother & Father. Neumann shows how the myth of the dragon, hoarding its treasure & holding a princess captive, has a deep & precise meaning for the development of consciousness. Then, as tho all that weren't enough, he moves on to Part II: a discussion of the developmental stages of the individual ego in light of its symbolic development in human culture. Each of us undergoes these mythological dramas in our quest for consciousness & identity, with the climaxes of the struggle representing the familiar crises of development at characteristic ages. Neumann concludes with a shorter examination of the crisis of modern Westerners, which he sees as a symptom of the overemphasis of ego-consciousness at the expense of its relationship with the life-giving unconscious, resulting in a split between them. The results, he thinks, can only be disastrous as we've seen in the calamities of the 20th century. It's hard to give a sense of the tremendous reach of this book. In this respect it has few peers. It would make an admirable companion-volume to Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", also published in 1949. Some contemporary readers might take exception to Neumann's approach to the masculine & feminine in psychology, since these terms have become so charged. But the function & role, indeed the very definition & origin of masculine & feminine--which are aspects of everyone's psyche--aren't taken for granted. On the contrary, they're among the phenomena he examines & explains. In a real sense, he's saying that consciousness was born of the polarity of masculine & feminine. Neumann also takes some trouble to point out what he regards as the errors of Freudian psychology, & shows many Freudian concepts, such as the Oedipus complex, to be special cases of more general principles that he explains. In general he's dismissive of psychoanalysis. Perhaps the highest praise for Neumann's work comes in the foreword, in which Jung expresses what amounts to envy for Neumann's achievement. For Neumann has taken the ideas developed by Jung over decades of observation & research, & fashioned a single, synthetic whole that illuminates the very core of our inmost being, both as individuals & as a species. He's brought together psychology & mythology more completely & convincingly than any other.--Paul Vitols (edited)