48 Quotes by Erich Neumann

The more acute the systemization of consciousness is, the more sharply it constellates the contents of the unconscious.

If the emergence of an archetype is not immediately followed by an instinctive reflex action, so much the better for conscious development, because the effect of the emotional-dynamic components is to disturb, or even prevent, objective knowledge, whether this be of the external world or of the psychic world of the collective unconscious.

For, with the liberation of the captive, a portion of the alien, hostile, feminine world of the unconscious enters into friendly alliance with the man’s personality, if not actually with his consciousness.

The fusion of areas of consciousness which for us are more or less clearly defined leads, as it were, to a perpetual game of hide-and-seek with ourselves and to a confusion of ego positions. Emotional instability, ambivalent pleasure-pain reactions, the interchangeability of inside and outside, of individual and group – all these result in an insecurity for the ego which is intensified by the powerfully emotional and affective “vectors” of the unconscious.

The more unconscious the whole of a man’s personality is and the more germinal his ego, the more his experience of the whole will be projected upon the group.

All unconscious contents have, as complexes, a specific tendency, a striving to assert themselves. Like living organisms, they devour other complexes and enrich themselves with their libido.

In these circumstances, when consciousness is insufficiently differentiated from the unconscious, and the ego from the group, the group member finds himself as much at the mercy of group reactions as of unconscious constellations.

Individualization, ego formation, and heroism belong to the very life of the male group and are in fact its expressions.

The hero is an ego hero; that is, he represents the struggles of consciousness and the ego against the unconscious. The masculinization and strengthening of the ego, apparent in the hero’s martial deeds, enable him to overcome his fear of the dragon and give him courage to face the Terrible Mother – Isis – and her henchman Set.