Eternal Echoes:
Erich Neumann’s Timeless Relevance
to Consciousness, Creativity, and Evil
Named to Town & Country’s
“The Best Books to Read This November”
Erich Neumann (1905-1960) was a student, close collaborator, and life-long friend of C.G. Jung’s. He moved from Berlin to Palestine in 1934 where he endured WWII with much distress. This provoked intense and depthful research into topics such as evil, consciousness, and creativity that would occupy his attention for the rest of his life— as well as challenge his friend’s (Jung) thinking in many ways. His writings are still valuable and ever so pertinent for our understanding of human nature and the changing developments that have resulted in “the eruption of the shadow and psychic chaos in today’s world.” (Jerome Bernstein)
Eternal Echoes, Volume 10 of the Zürich Lecture Series, offers the reader an overview of Neumann’s opus, which is large and multifaceted. Beginning with an introduction of Erich Neumann including a series of his active imagination watercolors, we see an intimate view into his internal process. The Jung-Neumann Correspondence examines evil as witnessed during WWII. The work Neumann focused on during this period resulted in his exploration of his own Roots of Jewish Consciousness, both Revelation and Apocalypse, and Hasidism.
From there we move into an exploration of his exceptional and iconic books, The Origins and History of Consciousness, and The Great Mother, and two papers “Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivation” and “Narcissism.” Neumann continued his study of mythology and archetypes in Amor and Psyche: The Development of the Feminine.
Later in Neumann’s life, he wrote a number of books on creativity exploring its nature and source which began with his important early paper on “Mystical Man”: Creative Man, Art and the Creative Unconscious, The Place of Creation.
Neumann’s works lead us back to our ground of being, where we live with opposites that are fiercely alive, impacting our lives and cultures. His writings are comprehensive, clear and steeped in deeply felt experiences that help to place us on firm ground. Since many of his themes and concepts are universal—beginning with archetypes, myths, and images—this book is not only pertinent to Jungian psychotherapists but anyone interested in understanding the profundity of human nature and its development.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction: Who is Erich Neumann
A. Active Imagination and Paintings
B. Erich Neumann’s Watercolor Paintings
C. Concluding Thoughts
Chapter 2: Analysis of The Jung-Neumann Correspondence
A. Essential conflict
B. Jewish Psychology
C. After the War
D. Conflict in Zurich and Discussions of Evil
E. What is Consciousness?
F. Conclusion
Chapter 3: Analysis of The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume One: Revelation & Apocalypse
A. Introduction
B. Neumann’s Introduction to Roots
C. On The YHWH-Earth Relation and Prophecy
D. On The Apocalypse: Heightening the YHWH-Earth Tension
E. On The Dangerous Ending of the YHWH-Earth Tension
F. On The Author’s Appendices
1. On Methodology
2. On The Foundation Stone and the Waters of the Deep
3. On The Composition of the Pentateuch
4. On Earth and the Symbols of the Elements
a. On Wind Symbolism
b. On The Body-Soul and Blood
c. On The Earth and Bull
d. On Circumcision and Passover
e. On Lilith
Chapter 4: Analysis of The Roots of Jewish Consciousness, Volume Two: Hasidism and its Psychological Meaning for Judaism
A. Introduction to Volume Two
B. On The Structure of the World of Inwardness
C. On The Transformation of Souls
D. On Life in the World
E. On The Human Being and the New God Image of God
F. On Hasidism and the Birth of the Modern Jew
G. Conclusion
Chapter 5: Analysis of The Origins and History of Consciousness and its Precursors
A. On Neumann’s Introduction
B. On The First Stage: The Matriarchal Uroboros
C. The Terrible Mother
D. On The Twin Brothers—The Strugglers
E. My Dream Related to The Hero
F. On Centroversion
G. On The Motif in The Myth of Osiris and Transformation
H. My Dream of Evil
I. The Ego
J. Neumann’s Terminology
Chapter 6: On Neumann’s Paper, “Mass Man and the Phenomena of Recollectivization”
A. The Second Coming
B. Conclusion 1
Chapter 7: On Neumann’s Paper, “Narcissism”
Chapter 8: Analysis of The Great Mother and Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine
A. Introduction
B. An Overview of the Archetype of The Great Mother
C. The Feminine Mysteries
D. On Neumann’s Diagrams
a. Schema l: Map of the Archetypal World
b. Schema ll: Amplification of the Feminine and Masculine
c. Schema lll: Archetypal Feminine
D. On The Myth of Amor and Psyche
E. On The Interpretation/Amplification of the Myth
F. Conclusion
Chapter 9: Analysis of The Nature and Source of Creativity: Creative Man, Art and the Creative Unconscious, The Place of Creation, Six image examples
A. Dylan’s Self-portrait
B. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
C. Van Gogh
D. Mark Rothko
E. Henry Moore, Three Sculptures
F. Andy Warhol Self-portrait
Chapter 10: On the Paper “Mystical Man”
Chapter 11: Conclusion—Final Thoughts
Appendix: List of Erich Neumann’s lectures at Eranos in Switzerland
References
Index
Also Available in the
Zürich Lecture Series Collection
Nancy Swift Furlotti
Nancy Swift Furlotti, Ph.D. is a Jungian Analyst living in Aspen, Colorado. She is a past president of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where she trained, and founding member and past president of the Philemon Foundation. She is currently a member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Colorado and the Interregional Association of Jungian Analysts. She is on the boards of Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Smithsonian National Asian Museum. Her company, Recollections, LLC, participates in the publication of early analysts’ unpublished material, such as Erich Neumann, Emma Jung, and projects including C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz. She, along with Erel Shalit, wrote the book The Dream and its Amplification, and has a forthcoming book from her Fay Lecture, The Splendor of the Maya: A Journey into the Shadows at the Dawn of Creation.
The Zürich Lecture Series –
Published by
Chiron Publications
Volume 1 – Where Soul Meets Matter: Clinical and Social Applications of Jungian Sandplay Therapy
by Eva Pattis Zoja
Eva Pattis Zoja explores the psyche’s astonishing capacity and determination to regulate itself by creating images and narratives as soon as a free and protected space for expression is provided. A variety of examples from analytic practice with adults and from psychosocial projects with children in vulnerable situations illustrate how sandplay can be used in different therapeutic settings.
Volume 2 – ‘Two Souls Alas’ : Jung’s Two Personalities and the Making Of Analytical Psychology
by Mark Saban
In his memoir, Memories Dreams Reflections, Carl Jung tells us that, as a child, he had the experience of possessing two personalities. ‘Two Souls Alas’ is the first book to suggest that Jung’s experience of the difficult dynamic between these two personalities not only informs basic principles behind the development of Jung’s psychological model but underscores the theory and practice of Analytical Psychology as a whole.
Volume 3 – Reading Goethe at Midlife:
Ancient Wisdom, German Classicism & Jung
by Paul Bishop
Reading Goethe at Midlife reveals the remarkable symmetry between the ideas and Jung and Goethe. Jung’s analysis of the stages of life, and his advice to heed the “call of the self,” are brought into the conjunction with Goethe’s emphasis on the importance of hope, showing an underlying continuity of thought and relevance from ancient wisdom, via German classicism to analytical psychology.
Volume 4 – Creativity:
Patterns of Creative Imagination as Seen Through Art
by Paul Brutsche
We don’t know where creativity comes from. Is it inspired from above? Welling up from below? Picked up from the air?
This book does not claim to reveal this secret. It does not attempt to reduce creativity to a “nothing but,” for example to explain it as a special ability of certain creative individuals with special abilities. On the contrary, it is about exploring the fullness and variety of this amazing power, which is the basis of all cultural, artistic, scientific and spiritual activity of man, without attributing it to a simple cause.
Volume 5 – A Story of Dreams, Fate and Destiny
by Erel Shalit
In this rich and poetically written book, Erel Shalit “calls attention to the dream and its images along the nocturnal axis that leads us from fate to destiny.” He takes us on a journey from ancient history, beginning with the first documented dream, that of Gilgamesh, to Adam and Eve and the serpent, to Joseph in Egypt as the Pharaoh’s dream interpreter, through ancient Greece to the Asklepion, to Swedenborg’s visions, to our world today through the eyes of Freud, Jung, and science, and finally to the process of active imagination to reveal the workings of Mercurius and the transcendent function.
Volume 6 – At Home In The World:
Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging
by John Hill
This work offers a profound philosophical and psychological exploration of the multi-dimensional significance of home and the interwoven themes of homelessness and homesickness and contemporary global culture. Home is a particular dwelling place, as a cultural or national identity, as a safe temenos in therapy, and as a metaphor for the individuation process are analyzed expertly from multidisciplinary perspectives and, more poignantly, through the sharing of diverse narratives that bear witness to lives lived and endured from memories of homes lost and regained.
Volume 7 – The Power of Stories: Mythodrama:
Conflict Management and Group Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents Using Stories
by Allan Guggenbühl
In this book a therapeutic method and conflict management approach is presented, which is successfully employed in group work with children and adolescents in despair or in a conflict situation. Mythodramas main focus are specially selected stories, which mirror the issues of the respective group, connect to the issues of the group, and serve as an entrance to the imaginal. The book describes how the stories are selected, told, enacted, and linked to the issues and concerns of the group or individual. Mythodrama is a potent method, based on Jungian psychology, which helps groups to move on, express their emotions, concerns, and get motivated to find solutions. Mythodrama has successfully been applied in groups consisting of traumaticised children or adolescents, violent youth, bullies, victims of aggression, adolescents with identity crises, etc. Mythodrama is also a method which is employed in conflict management in schools. The key elements of Mythodrama are Stories, Play, Imagination, Drama, and Concrete Changes.
Volume 8 – Breaking The Spell Of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, And Metaphysics In The Work Of C. G. Jung
by Roderick Main
Roderick Main examines various ways in which C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology, developed during this same period, can be seen to challenge that dominant narrative.
After explaining the complex and ambivalent nature of disenchantment and the many different responses to it, Main shows how the Jungian process of individuation intrinsically fosters a culturally much needed reenchantment of the world, though in a way that also continues to acknowledge the role of both disenchantment and naïve enchantment. He then focuses in turn on Jung’s lifelong engagement with anomalous phenomena, his concept of synchronicity as a principle of acausal connection through meaning, and his implicit panentheistic metaphysics to show in greater detail how, contrary to disenchantment, analytical psychology affirms genuine mystery, inherent meaning, and relationship to spiritual or divine reality.
The Lion Will Become Man [ZLS Edition]: Alchemy and the Dark Spirit in Nature-A Personal Encounter
Volume 10 – Eternal Echoes: Erich Neumann’s Timeless Relevance to Consciousness, Creativity, and Evil
by Nancy Swift Furlotti
Eternal Echoes offers the reader an overview of Erich Neumann’s opus, which is large and multifaceted. Beginning with an introduction of Erich Neumann including a series of his active imagination watercolors, we see an intimate view into his internal process. The Jung-Neumann Correspondence examines evil as witnessed during WW11. The work Neumann focused on during this period resulted in his exploration of his own Roots of Jewish Consciousness, both Revelation and Apocalypse, and Hasidism.
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