Ancient World

The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype

    Translated by
  • Ralph Manheim
    Foreword by
  • Martin Liebscher

A landmark account of the Great Mother as a primordial image of the human psyche

Hardcover

Price:
$45.00/£38.00
ISBN:
Published:
Jan 20, 2026
Pages:
624
Size:
5.5 x 8.5 in.
Illus:
259 b/w illus.

In this book, renowned analytical psychologist Erich Neumann draws on ritual, mythology, art, and records of dreams and fantasies to examine how the archetype of the Great Mother has been outwardly expressed in many cultures and periods since prehistory. He shows how the feminine has been represented as goddess, monster, gate, pillar, tree, moon, sun, vessel, and every animal from snakes to birds. Neumann discerns a universal experience of the maternal as both nurturing and fearsome, an experience rooted in the dialectical relation of growing consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the unconscious and the unknown, symbolized by the Great Mother. With a foreword by Martin Liebscher, The Great Mother is a profound and enduring work by one of the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century.