The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (German: Die große Mutter. Der Archetyp des grossen Weiblichen) is a book about mother goddesses by the psychologist Erich Neumann. The dedication reads, "To C. G. Jung friend and master in his eightieth year". Although Neumann completed the German manuscript in Israel in 1951,[1] The Great Mother was first published in English in 1955.[2] The work has been seen as an enduring contribution to literature inspired by Jung.
As a brief introduction to a fraction of the book's narrative and analysis, presented here is an abbreviated abstract of a diagram Neumann identifies as "Schema III".[3] Around a circle, or Great Round,[4] various mother and related entities drawn from the history of religions were placed.[5][6][7] From these were selected the following six representatives:
Neumann, employing the values of traditional cultures,[8][9] describes the different positions as: Kali, the terrible Mother (sickness, dismemberment, death, extinction); the witches, negative change;[10][11] Lilith, the negative Anima (ecstasy, madness, impotence, stupor); Isis, the good Mother (fruit, birth, rebirth, immortality); Mary (spiritual transformation);[12] and, Sophia, the positive Anima (wisdom, vision, inspiration, ecstasy). They are grouped in three polar opposites: the Mother axis (Isis-Kali); the Anima axis (Sophia-Lilith); and the Transformation axis (vertical).[13][14]
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