Another snippet, scouring the web without actually reading the book! (see last post)
PEP Web – The Origins and History of Consciousness: By Erich Neumann.:
“In his Introduction the author writes: ‘It is the task of this book to show that a series of archetypes is a main constituent of mythology, that they stand in an organic relation to one another, and that their stadial succession determines the growth of consciousness. In the course of its ontogenetic development, the individual ego consciousness has to pass through the same archetypal stages which determined the evolution of consciousness in the life of humanity’ (p. xvi). ‘The individualized conscious man of our era is a late man, whose structure is built on early, pre-individual human stages from which individual consciousness has only detached itself step by step’ (p. xx). Hence, Part I deals with ‘The Mythological Stages in the Evolution of Consciousness’ in three sections: A, ‘The Creation Myth’; B, ‘The Hero Myth’; C, ‘The Transform”
I’m thinking of my 18 month old granddaughter – she is certainly developing her own sense of self. Stages makes sense, but what is the sequence.
The relational paradigm is surely a higher stage of consciousness, it includes individuation which can’t be attained without it.