The Israeli analytical psychologist Erich Neumann, whom C. G. Jung
regarded as one of his most gifted students, devoted much of his later
writing to the theme of creativity. This is the third volume of
Neumann's essays on that subject. Neumann found his examples not only in
the work of writers and artists--William Blake, Goethe, Rilke, Kafka,
Klee, Chagall, Picasso, Trakl--but as well in that of physicists,
biologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Confronting the problem of
portraying men and women as creative beings, Neumann expanded the
concepts of Jungian psychology with a more comprehensive definition of
the archetype and a new concept--"unitary reality." Whether or not
humanity can be restored to health from its present situation as a
self-endangered species depends, according to Neumann, on whether we can
experience ourselves as truly creative, in touch with our own being and
the world's being. The six essays comprising this volume--"The Psyche
and the Transformation of the Reality Planes," "The Experience of the
Unitary Reality," "Creative Man and the `Great Experience, '" "Man and
Meaning," "Peace as the Symbol of Life," and "The Psyche as the Place of
Creation"--all originated as lectures at the Eranos Conferences in the
years 1952 to 1960.
Originally published in 1989.
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