The Great Mother: An Analysis of the ArchetypeErich Neumann2015

This landmark book explores the great mother as a primordial image of the human psyche. Here the renowed analytical psychologist Erich Neumann draws on ritual, mythology, art, and records of dreams and fantasies to examine how this archetype has been outwardly expressed in many cultures and periods since prehistory. He shows how the feminine has been represented as godess, monster, gate, pillar, tree, moon, sun, vessel, and every animal form snakes to birds. Neumann discerns a universal experience of the maternal as both nurturing and fearsome, an experience rooted in the dialectical relation of growing consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the unconsciouss and the unknown, symbolized by the Great Mother.

Titre original : The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (2015)