The Great Mother (Mythos Books)

Rating:
Summary: Dominion Over All
Review: Erich Neumann's profusely illustrated The Great Mother: An Analysis Of An Archetype (1955) is a densely composed psychological study in the tradition of those written by Neumann's eminent teacher and mentor, C. G. Jung. But whereas Jung's many books were underscored by a sense of profound, almost inexpressible knowledge and inner confidence in his material and ability, Neumann's less convincing The Great Mother often seems specious, arbitrary, and murky in its details and conclusions.

The volume's excellent first chapter, "The Structure of the Archetype," offers what is probably the best single definition and description of the archetype available anywhere. Though he recovers his bearings again later, Neumann quickly loses his way in his second chapter, "The Archetypal Feminine And The Great Mother," which delineates the levels of the unconscious into the unconvincing and clumsy subdivisions "The Archetypal Feminine" (which is further subdivided into "The Uroboric Great Mother" and "The Maternal Uroboros"), "The Terrible Mother," "The Great Mother," "The Good Mother," "The Anima," and the "projected" conscious categories of "the Gorgon," "Isis," and "Sophia."

Since Neumann rightly or wrongly believes at every facet of reality - from the unconscious and conscious processes of mankind to the entire natural world ("the universe, the primeval darkness, and the generative night sky") - can be and has been defined at base in terms of the larger feminine archetype, his portrayal of nature and human destiny is one in which both the individual man and the collective are but playthings to a force that is ruthlessly impersonal, blindly instinctive, and simultaneously transcendent and immediately present in the every day world.

Neumann's "feminine" archetype exists and has existed everywhere and is found in literally everything: in "ponds, streams, and swamps," in "mountains, hills, cliffs," in "fertile muck," in "cave, pillar, and rock," in "thrones, stones, stone implements, and fire," in "plants, roots, and tubers," in "the serpent and the scorpion, the fishes of the river and the sea, the wild beasts of wood and mountain, the goose, duck, and heron, the nocturnal owl and the dove, the cow and the bull, goat, pig, and sheep, the bee," in "the fruit and the nut," "the grain," "the house, door, threshold, and tomb," "the couch, the table, the hearth, and the bed," "the oven and the mill," "the cauldron and the pot," "the magical song and poetry," "suffering and death, sacrifice and annihilation, renewal, rebirth, and immortality," "the fertility of men and animals," and "earth and heaven."

Neumann believes and attempts to prove that the earliest societies were matriarchies that were later usurped and overthrown by men, but curiously fails to explore why such a process might have been necessary or even required for the establishment of civilization and culture as well as for the evolution and development of consciousness. The role of the corresponding male archetype and its dynamic role in mankind's evolution and destiny is one of the questions that the unnuanced text of The Great Mother pointedly begs but flatly ignores at every turn.

In Neumann's perspective, it was women who first developed the "preparation and storage of food" and the "fermentation and manufacture of intoxicants...as the gatherer and later preparer of herbs, plants, and fruits, she was the inventor and guardian of the first healing potions, medicines, and poisons." As Neumann's ancient women were both hunters and gatherers, "only the killing of large animals" fell "to the males," who were entirely subordinate and dependent on women to sustain them. Then as now, "the male remains inferior to, and at the mercy of, the Feminine that confronts him as a power of destiny." Males, Neumann says, are mere "bondsmen" of powers that ultimately belong and revert to their true source in women as the rightful vessel of the Feminine, who "confers no birth and no life without pain." Apparently unable to determine anything whatsoever on his own, even ancient male warriors were only acting in the service of women and the "Great Mother." Trapped in an inferior role to the "Archetypal Feminine," from birth to death Neumann's males are puppets and second - class citizens in the heretical Feminine order. As finite human beings rather than archetypal forces, women themselves fair only slightly better.

How much of Neumann's thesis is accurate and factual? How much is hazy speculative mysticism? Are "women," whose bodies "correspond to the Great Goddess" really the only individuals who can effect genuine spiritual change and transformation, or is Neumann confusing poetic metaphor and fact, or the nature of the unconscious with mankind's anthropomorphic identification of it? Neumann goes out on a limb and embarrasses himself more than once, as when he compares the "secrets" of "primordial mysteries" that were "traditionalized into cults" "by women" with "tendencies in modern life" wherein food recipes "become a secret family tradition." That example grandly ignores the newly suburbanized father of Fifties American culture, proudly outfitted in chef's hat and apron, gleefully flipping hamburgers on the backyard barbecue grill.

Flouting Freud's well - supported belief that the incest taboo was the very basis of consciousness and civilization, Neumann holds instead that "all taboos originated in the menstruation taboo that women imposed on themselves and on men." Are men in all cases really perceived by women as "alien" interlopers who comes "from without and by violence take the daughter from the mother," or is he literalizing and overapplying the Demeter - Persephone myth and motif? Shrewd and cautious readers of The Great Mother will discover that many of Neumann's assertions fail to bear up under closer examination and scrutiny.

Feminist scholar and cultural critic Camille Paglia, a Neumann advocate, has written three books, Sexual Personae (1990), Sex, Art, & American Culture (1992) and Tramps & Vamps (1995), which offer a deeper, better elucidated, and more balanced historical interpretation of the same material Neumann offers here, stressing as she does the vital importance of the male dynamic in the rise of Western civilization while underscoring that "cultic femaleness is no guarantee of cultural strength or viability."

Rating:
Summary: a must for mythology lovers
Review: The Great Mother is an absolute must-have for anyone intersted in mythology, Jungian psychology or even literary analysis.

Part I is quite heavy in termonology and complex archtypal ideas; part II is more accessable and can be read and enjoyed without part I. As a feminist, I found it fascinating to learn about the different aspects of the goddess. I especially enjoyed the chapter called "Lady of the Beasts" which discusses the different animals associated with the Great Mother and their symbolic significance. Even if you don't subcribe to Jungian psychology, this book is a fascinating look into the human mind.

Finally, there's 185 pages of photographs and drawings at the end of the book -- fascinating to thumb through!