The Great Mother

From: Erich Neumann, The Great Mother

...The exploration of the female psyche in its singularity is one of the most essential and important tasks that depth psychologists confront when striving for the constructive recovery and development of the individual.
The female problems have the same meaning for the cultural psychologists, who have realized that the danger humans face today is partially based on the one-sided patriarchal development of the male conscience, which is no longer balanced by the “matriarchal” world of psyche.  In this sense, the embodiment of the archetypal-psychic world of the ``Great Feminine ``, which we will strive to describe in our work, is also a contribution to the groundwork of a future cultural therapy….
…. Apparently out-of-date and far removed from the reality of day-to-day activity, the archaic world of archetypes not only forms the foundation for all psychotherapy; the worldview opened by it for mankind is an experience which not only allows the transformation into something bigger, but also the access to life and entirety of mankind. The assimilation of man’s archetypal world leads to a personal humanization, which is not the knowledge of consciousness, but of experience of the whole person. This humanization will perhaps prove to be more stable than today´s form of humanism which is lacking a basis of depth psychology. One of the decisive symptoms of this humanization appears in the development of the psychological conscience in individuals and in society. Without it the future development of the endangered mankind is no longer possible…..

....One should also not forget that “early mankind“, just as the “matriarchal level,” is neither an archeological nor historical concept, but psychological truth.
Its fateful power is still alive in the mental depths of mankind. Health and creativity of the single person substantially depends on the way, he or she gets on with this layer of unconsciousness: weather peacefully or consumed by hostility….