The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann (Patron-Only Early Access)

Really impressive review, man. It's such a massive work - you nailed it in the time frame you have. Well done! 👏 I hope lots of people read this book. Like Paglia said: this book could still save the Humanities.

Awesome review, thanks for tapping into dark, unmapped territory. One question: what is it you wanted to say, but stopped, when you were beginning to explain the character of social online platforms from a Neumann perspective?

Once again, your review reminded me why I became a patreon member. Thanks.

Wow, fascinating. New name to me.

Great video! You really captured "Origins and History" well, including your descriptions of the main themes and the "feel" of the book as a meta-overview of western culture and psychology. Excellent job! I loved your point about how all Neumann's ideas initially just seem like unproven theorizing, but then as you get older you can start to see the themes described by Neumann appearing in your own life and in the lives of people around you. That's basically the test of psychology: Does it pass the "sniff test"? Psychology theories are largely untestable and unprovable, but as you get older they should increasingly turn out to be the answers to life's big problems. I'm also impressed with all the the side research you did: The Paglia essay on Neumann, the Nexus Void series (which I need to check out), the Peterson references, etc. In the future, if you want to read more stuff by Neumann: 1) I would start with "The Fear of the Feminine and Other Essays on Feminine Psychology" by Neumann. The book is actually a collection of essays by Neumann on a variety of subjects, but the material tends to look at the female side of psychology and it is on a par with the material in "Origins and History." For example, one essay suggests female versions of the Son-lover and Struggler archetypes and shows how these female archetypes appear in mythology. Another essay looks at the animosity between the sexes (patriarchy, the gender wars, devaluation of the feminine, etc.) and how it arises. And so on. 2) Next best is "Amor and Psyche" by Neumann. Neumann does a whole book analyzing the Psyche & Eros myth. It's a female version of the "hero journey," with Psyche (a mortal woman) struggling against a Terrible Mother figure (the goddess Aphrodite) to win the heart of Eros (the male god of love). It talks a little bit about how "mystery religions" such as the Eleusinian mysteries in Greece and Rome operate as the female variant of the sons' initiation into men's societies as described in "Origins and History." And it's a relatively short book (150 pages). 3) I would put "The Great Mother" last in terms of readability. It's 400 pages on one subject: Symbols and mythology of the Great Mother. It's encyclopedic and deep on that one subject, but it gets a bit boring after a while. I started skimming toward the end, just trying to get through it all. By the way, have you reviewed any of Sigmund Freud's big books? Freud did a couple books talking about how psychology intersects with western culture, for example, "Civilization and Its Discontents." It's kind of like that last part of "Origins and History" where Neumann talks about how psychology impacts on culture and politics on a mass scale. A bit dry, but doable for the layman. Also, Freud's book "The Interpretation of Dreams" works as an overview of Freudian psychology as a whole. Dreams are products of the unconscious, and everyone is familiar with them, so Freud dissects them and analyzes them in meticulous detail (including nightmares, dreams where you are naked or missing a key article of clothing, dreams of losing teeth, dreams of taking tests in school, etc.) and shows how they manifest all the hidden sides of our psychology. Interesting read, and it can serve as kind of a "back door" introduction to his whole theory of psychology. Again, dry but doable for the layman. Just by the way, I was trying to think of any books by Jung that might be of interest to the average layman. But I couldn't really come up with any. Jung is brilliant, but he just tends to be tough to read. Like some philosophers. Anyway, those are just a few suggestions for future psych reading if you're interested in doing more academic reading on that subject. It's all "big overview" stuff, for the most part. Again, great video!