To take and example, the magical connection between the ritual representational killing of an animal in the paleolithic art and the killing of it in reality is not 'real'-i.i. does not 'work'- in the way that primitive man possibly thought it did work. We, with our logical...thinking, first understand this magical working in terms of causality, and then declare that no such causal connection exists. But primitive man experiences the magical effect differently, and more correctly...the effect of the pictorial killing upon the real animal is not the effect of 'thought', so that to speak of the 'SOVEREIGN POWER OF THOUGHT' is exceedingly problematical. We can establish as a scientific fact that the rite is not likely to have any objective efect upon the animal: but that is not tho say that the magic rite is therefore illusory, infantile, and mere wishful thinking.
the magical effect of the rite is factual and...[not] illusory...it works out...on...hunting successes; only the effect does not proceed via the object but via the subject. The magical rite, like all magic and...every higher intention, including...religion acts upon the subject who practices the magic..by altering his ability to act."Erich Nuemann: The Origins and History of Consciousness p208
"The myth, being a projection of the transpersonal collective unconscious, depicts trasnspersonal events and, whether interpreted objectively or subjectively, in no case is a personalistic interpretation adequate. Moreover, the subjective interpretation which sees the myth as a transpersonal psychic event is, in view of the myth's origins in the collective unconscious, much fairer that an attempt to interpret it objectively e.g. as a meteorological or astral event." Erich Nuemann: The Origins and History of Consciousness p197
"She expects strength, cunning, resourcefulness, bravery, protection and readiness to fight. Her demands on her rescuer are many...throwing open of dungeons, deliverance from deadly and magical powers both paternal and maternal, the hacking down of thorny thickets and flaming hedges of inhibitions and anxiety, liberation of slumbering or enchained womanhood in her, the solution of riddles and guessing games in a battle of wits and rescue from joyless depression."Erich Nuemann: The Origins and History of Consciousness p 201
" An effect that proceeds from an alteration in the subject is objective and real."Erich Nuemann: The Origins and History of Consciousness p 209
"We must not forget that the discovery of the objective, external world is a secondary phenomenon, the result of human consciousness and endeavoring, with infinite labor and the help of the instruments and abstractions of modern science, to grasp the object as such, independently of the primary reality of man, which is the reality of the psyche." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p208
" 'The ego complex is a content of consciousness as well as a condition of consciousness...it is only the center of ...consciousness...being merely one among other complexes' C.G. Jung, Psychological Types Definition 16-...we have traced the development of this ego complex in mythology, and in so doing have familiarized us with part of the history of consciousness in its mythological projection. The developmental changes in the relation between the ego and the unconscious were expressed mythological in different archetypal figures...in which the unconscious presents itself to the ego, or which the ego constellates out of the unconscious. In taking the archetypal stages to be developmental stages of ego consciousness, we have interpreted the mythological figures of the child, the adolescent, and the hero stages in the ego's own transformation. The ego complex, which is the central complex of the psyche, forms the theater for the events described in Part I." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p262
"In our dreams we inhabit an interior world with out being aware that we do so, for all the figures in the dream are images, symbols, and projections of interior processes. Similarly the world of the dawn man is very largely an interior world experienced outside himself, a condition in which inside and outside are not discriminated from one another. The feeling of oneness with the universe, the ability of all contents to change shape and place, in accordance with the laws of similarity and symbolic affinity, the symbolic affinity, the symbolic character of the world, and the symbolic meaning of all spatial dimensions-high and low, left and right, etc.-the significance of colors, and so forth, all this the world of dreams shares with the dawn period of mankind." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p276
"It [uroboros,as circle] is the symbol of the pre-ego epoch, and hence of the prehistoric world. Before the beginning of history , mankind existed in a state of nameless amorphousness of which we know, and can know , very little, because at that period 'the unconscious' ruled, as we say-...So long as a apperceptive ego consciousness is lacking, there can be no history, for history requires a reflecting consciousness, which by reflecting constitutes it. Hence the time before history must be indeterminate chaos and nondifferentiation. Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p281
"Even in our waking state our ego consciousness, which in any case forms only a segment of the total psyche, exhibits varying degrees of animation, ranging from reverie, partial attention, and a diffuse wakefulness to partial concentration upon something, intense concentration, and finally moments of general and extreme alertness. The conscious system even of a healthy person is charged with libido only during certain periods of his life: in sleep it is piratically or completely emptied of libido, and the degree of alertness varies with age. The margin of conscious alertness in modern man is relatively narrow, the intensity of his active performance is limited and illness, strain, old age, and all psychic disturbances take their toll of his alertness. It seems that the organ of consciousness is still at an early stage of development and relatively unstable." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p281-282
"The real source of conflict between the individual and the unconscious lies in the fact that the unconscious represents the will of the species, of the collective, and not in the opposition of the pleasure and the reality principles..." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p285
"This original tie with the body as something 'peculiarly one's own' is the basis of all individual development. Later the ego relates to the body, to its superior powers, and to the unconscious- with which is processes are largely identified- in a different and even contrary way. As the higher principle working through the head and consciousness, the ego comes into conflict with the body, and this conflict sometimes leads to a neurotic, partial dissociation which, however, is only the product of an latter dissociation, But even then the body totality seems to stand in a relationship of identity and equality with the totality of the psyche, namely, the self. These two totality formations, or images of wholeness, are superordinate to the ego consciousness and regulate the individual systems-including ego consciousness- from a total standpoint of which the ego can become only partially conscious." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p290
"Ego consciousness is a sense organ which perceives the world and the unconscious by means of images, but this image-forming capacity is itself a psychic product, not a quality of the world. Image formation alone makes perception ans assimilation possible. A world that cannot be imagined, an nonplastic world like that of the lower animals, is of course a living world; there are instincts in it and the organisms as a whole responds to it by unconscious action. But such a world never gets represented in a psychic system that reflects and shapes it. The psyche here is built up through a series of reflexes, it responds to stimuli with unconscious reactions, but with no central organ in which stimulus and reaction are represented. Only as centroversion develops and gives rises to systems of ever higher scope and caliber do we get the world represented in images, and an organ -consciousness- which perceives this plastic world of representations. The psychic world of images is a synthesis of experiences of the inner and outer world, as any symbol will show." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p292
"...the physical process...is experienced with the aid of images which derive from the interior world of the psyche and are projected upon the external world rather than that the experiences of the external world are superimposed on the inner...the object becomes disentangled ony very gradually and with extreme slowness from the mass of projections...which originate in the interior world of the psyche." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p294
"When instincts...appear as images, Jung calls them archetypes. Archetypes take the form of images only where consciousness is present." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p295
"The ego, keeping ist detachment as the center of the registering consciousness, is a differentiated organ exerciser its controlling function in the interests of the whole, but not identical with it." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p297
" 'Complexes' those contents of the unconscious which influence our lives [extraordinarily] have been...characterized as feeling-toned...The disturbances in the rational structure...are due to the emotional component of the complex and to the feelings it arouses." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p331
"...perception and instinctive reaction are one...originally...a perceptual image outside or inside resulted in an instantaneous reaction...the coupling of the image with an emotional-dynamic component instantly released flight or attack, an access of rage, paralysis etc." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p331
"Consciousness has to resist these instinctive reactions because the ego is likely to be overpowered by the blind force of instinct...there is...a conflict between the developing ego consciousness and the world of instinct [which] is by no means always in accord with the individual aims of the ego, nor with its preservation." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p332-333
"...wherever the conditions are primitive, the conflict between individual consciousness and the collective tendencies of the unconscious is resoved in favor of the collective and at the cost of the individual. Often the instinctive reactions bear no relation to the ego, but only to the collective, the species, etc." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p333
"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 emotionally dynamic components is to disturb, or even prevent objective knowledge...Consciousness['s]...differentiation...is only possible when the emotional components of the unconscious are excluded." The Origins and History of Consciousness p334
"The creative process...starts in the unconscious and works upwards. Manifestations of the unconscious in the form of images, ideas, thoughts etc, are experienced by the ego as pleasurable. The joy of the creative process springs from the suffusion of consciousness with the libido of the heretofore unconsciously activated content... the pleasure and enrichment of libido resulting from conscious realization and creativity are symptomatic of a synthesis in which the polarity of the two systems, conscious and unconscious, is temporarily suspended." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p334
"...ego consciousness proves its difference from all partial psychic systems - of which it is one= by throwing off that fanatical obsession wit itself which is symptomatic of every systems' primary will to self-preservation, it is precisely this growing reflectiveness, self-criticism, and desire for truth and objectivity that enable consciousness to give better and more adequate representation even to the positions it opposes. this facilitates self-objectivation and finally, at the climax of its development, it learns to give up its ego-centerdness and allows itself t be integrated by the totality of the psyche, the self." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p358
"...behind the over accentuation of consciousness, ego, and reason...[is] the danger which...culminates in a spirituality that has lost touch with reality and the instincts. ...sclerosis of consciousness, where the ego identifies with consciousness as a form of spirit...identifying spirit with intellect, and consciousness with thinking." Erich Nuemann :The Origins and History of Consciousness p386
