The Origins and History of Consciousness
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Cover of the German edition
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| Author | Erich Neumann |
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| Original title | Ursprungsgeschichte des Bewusstseins |
| Translator | R. F. C. Hull |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Subject | World history |
| Published |
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| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 493 (English edition) |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | 53-12527 |
The Origins and History of Consciousness (German: Ursprungsgeschichte des Bewusstseins) is a 1949 book by the psychologist and philosopher Erich Neumann. It was first published in English in 1954 in a translation by R. F. C. Hull. Neumann's work has been seen as an important and enduring contribution to Jungian thought, but Neumann has also been criticized for using evidence in misleading ways and making untenable assumptions.
Neumann charts what he calls the "mythological stages in the evolution of consciousness", which include the creation myth, the hero myth, and the transformation myth, which is identified with the Egyptian god Osiris. His theories, which were based on study of creation myths from around the world and his clinical experience, have been described by the Jungian analyst Robert H. Hopcke as follows: human consciousness develops out of unconsciousness through a series of stages, a process represented by the ego's emergence from the "Ouroboros", a primordial condition of self-contained unconsciousness symbolized by the circle of a snake devouring its own tail. As the ego consciousness differentiates itself from uroboric unconsciousness, it begins to experience this primordial unconsciousness both as the life-giving origin of its existence and as a threat to its newly won autonomy.
This ambivalent experience is often given shape in the form of the Great Mother, who bestows all life and also holds life and death, existence and non-existence, in her all-powerful hands. For true autonomy to occur, the domination of the Great Mother must be shaken off by individual ego consciousness. This process occurs by two subsequent stages: first, the separation of the world parents in which the opposites of masculinity and femininity emerge from the matrix of uroboric unity, and second the hero myth, in which the ego aligns itself with the principle of heroic masculinity in order to free itself from the dominance of the matriarchy. Neumann quotes Johann Jakob Bachofen, but for him the matriarchal stage "refers to a structural layer and not to any historical epoch."
Homosexuality is seen by Neumann as a result of an identification with the archetypal feminine. He writes that, "even today we almost always find, in cases of male homosexuality, a matriarchal psychology where the Great Mother is unconsciously in the ascendant." He believes that homosexuality represents a lack of psychological development and can be considered immature.
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