Summary
Erich Neumann: Amor and Psyche
Psychic Development of Women Interpretation of Apuleius' Fable The well-known fable about Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius' novel The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), one of the most wonderful remnants of classical literature, is taken by Erich Neumann as the starting point for an unusual study of female psychology. Thus, we received a detailed and suggestive analysis of the psychological characteristics of the Female from the pen of Jung's most original student, who reached his teacher in that area in which Jung himself was not the most creative: in the psychological exegesis of myths and fairy tales. Psyche's path filled with pain - from the "lover of the night" shrouded in darkness to the conscious female partner of the god Eros - Neumann connects with the epochal development of the female and human race in general. Unlike Aphrodite, her persecutor, Psyche embodies a new type of lover. "With Psyche, a new principle of love is born in which the meeting of male and female becomes the basis of individuation. Through her act, the pain, guilt, loneliness and suffering that individuation brings with it enter the world." Psyche's individual love comes into conflict with the collective principle of pleasure and intoxication represented by Aphrodite, who tries in vain to prevent the transition to the new phase of womanhood associated with Psyche. Dying at the end of the fairy tale out of love for Eros and being saved by Eros, Psyche takes on the transformation of a man through her personal transformation; thanks to this double transformation, they finally find each other again. Psyche is received on Olympus as the wife of Eros. This means for Neumann that the soul's ability to love is a divine ability and that the transformative process of love is a mystery that it adores.
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