Life and Work of Erich Neumann: On the Side of the Inner Voice

by Angelica Löwe

Overview

Life and Work of Erich Neumann: On the Side of the Inner Voice is the first book to discuss Erich Neumann’s life, work and relationship with C.G. Jung. Neumann (1905–1960) is considered Jung’s most important student, and in this deeply personal and unique volume, Angelica Löwe casts Neumann's comprehensive work in a completely new light.

Based on conversations with Neumann’s children, Rali Loewenthal-Neumann and Professor Micha Neumann, Löwe explores Neumann’s childhood and adolescent years in Part I, including how he met his wife and muse Julie Blumenfeld. In Part II the book traces their life and work in Tel Aviv, where they moved in the early 1930s amid growing anti-Jewish tensions in Hitler’s Germany. Finally, in Part III, Löwe analyses Neumann’s most famous works.

This is the first book-length discussion of the existential questions motivating Neumann’s work, as well as the socio-historical circumstances pertaining to the problem of Jewish identity formation against rising anti-Semitism in the early 20th century. It will be essential reading for Jungian analysts and analytical psychologists in practice and in training, as well as scholars of Jungian and post-Jungian studies and Jewish studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781351208697
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/10/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	306
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Angelica Löwe, MA, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Vienna. She is a member of the C. G. Jung Institute in Munich, Germany, and other memberships include the DGAP and IAAP. She has published widely on various topics and serves as chief editor of Analytische Psychologie.

Table of Contents

List of figures; Foreword by Micha Neumann;  Preface to the 2014 German edition; Preface to the English edition; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Part I: Germany;  1. "I am a Jew and hold Prussian citizenship": The Cultural and Political Reorientation of a Generation;  2. "Our paths will cross again!": Erich Neumann and Julie Blumenfeld;  3. "… the wound of isolation beckons": Neumann’s Early Writings; Part II: Zurich; Tel Aviv; Moscia-Ascona, Lago Maggiore;  4. "...the Jews must go to the tzaddikim": C.G. Jung and Neumann’s Early Letters and Writings;  5. Excursus: "Motherly Soil" and "Renewal": Martin Buber’s and C.G. Jung’s Metaphors of Cultural Criticism;  6. "I must learn to distinguish myself": Neumann’s Correspondence with C.G. Jung on the Collective Unconscious and Individuation;  7. "… a general and identical revolution of minds": The Pogroms of November 1938 and the Jung-Neumann Correspondence;  8. "…yet still have the feeling of being in the right place": Life in Tel Aviv;  9. "…belonging to this island as if to a plot of land": Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn and Eranos;  Part III: Reading Neumann's Works;  10. "The Transparency and Transcendence of the Earth": Spiritualising a Problematic Concept;  11. "Actualised Messianism": The Theological Conceptualisation of Crisis, Identity and Transformation;  12. "…on the side of the inner voice and against the conscience of his time": Depth Psychology and a New Ethic and the Jewish Reception of Nietzsche;  13. "….all of a sudden I grasped his innocence": A Vision;  14. "Oedipus the vanquished, not the victor": The Origins and History of Human Consciousness and Neumann’s Critique of Freud;  15. "… a new principle of love": Neumann’s Amor and Psyche;  Appendix 1;  Appendix 2: German-Jewish dialogue: Neumann, Jung and the Jungians; Appendix 3: Documents;  References; Index

Editorial Reviews

"Of particular value in Angelica Löwe’s book are her excellent interpretations of my father’s work. She helps us feel our way into and thus to experience Erich Neumann’s inner world. Of all the interpretations that I have read, those presented in this volume are the most profound. I am most grateful to Ms Löwe for her work." - Professor Micha Neumann, Psychoanalyst, Tel Aviv

"Löwe’s psychological and historical insights are remarkable. I learned a great deal about Jung and Neumann — and Palestine — from what'she has researched. It made me rethink many things. I found her compassion as valuable as her scholarship. And the contemporary resonances shone through." - Andrew Samuels, Jungian analyst, Professor emeritus, University of Essex

"Erich Neumann described his world as 'sitting between all faculties' and therefore was able to reflect more deeply on it than the majority of his generation. Angelica Löwe brings this to light in her great book. Her expertise is stupendous, and her style elegant. Löwe’s book portrays Neumann and Julie Neumann as well as their practice in Israel. Two people with stunted German roots who reinvent themselves in C.G. Jung’s footsteps: Neumann as one of the most prominent Jungians and the couple as part of intellectual production communities between Tel Aviv and Ticino, where the famous Eranos Circle met. Angelica Löwe’s book is insightful and deserves wide attention." - Hildegard Keller, author and director, Zurich

"Nowadays, when a new book is published, one rarely gets the impression that it closes a gap...yet this is exactly what Angelica Löwe’s work does beyond any shade of doubt." - Roman Lesmeister, Jungian analyst, Hamburg

"Erich Neumann’s book The Great Mother enjoyed cult status in the '70s. The connections to C.G. Jung and the Eranos Circle were well known. But the author’s personality disappeared behind the Great Mother. Angelica Löwe has saved the Berlin-born German-Jewish intellectual from oblivion. She masterfully portrays his career and his work against the background of dramatic times. The result is a brilliant biographical study." - Daniel Krochmalnik, Professor of Jewish Religion and Philosophy, University of Potsdam

"Reading the life history of Erich Neumann and tracing the development of his theory in parallel to historical events, one can feel and understand his unique contribution to the world of analytical psychology and to Jung’s thoughts in particular, his deep understanding of the feminine and morality, finally the development of consciousness through life. Angelica Löwe’s wonderful account of Neumann’s relationship with Jung, his Jewish destiny, the search for his Jewish-Israeli identity and the development of his theory presents Neumann as the man and genius that he was." - Avi Bauman, Jungian analyst, Jerusalem

"An excellent biography!" - Paul Mendes-Flohr, Professor emeritus, University of Chicago, Divinity School

"One can only hope that Löwe’s book will stimulate further research and editions and that it will also help to strengthen the methodological and historical self-reflection of psychoanalysis. Its questions, those of a 'grammar of the depths,' also touch on the concerns of philosophy." - Harald Seubert, Professor of Theology, Basel School of Divinity, Gießen School of Divinity

"Angelica Löwe masterfully strings the scattered pearls of Neumann’s life and thought on a well organised biographical chain. Between 1925 and 1956, Neumann lived in Berlin, Erlangen, Heidelberg, Zurich, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ascona. During this period, he developed an important variant of depth psychology, mainly by shedding unprecedented light on the feminine in his famous The Great Mother. Löwe paints an impressively coherent and detailed picture of Neumann’s intellectual struggle for Jewish identity — beginning with his partly unpublished early work and correspondence, and ending with insightful interpretations of his classical works." - Manfred Oeming, Professor of Old Testament Theology, University of Heidelberg

"Erich Neumann is the subject of this excellent biography by Angelica Löwe. In Löwe's biography, the full extent of Neumann's life and work is explored. Recommended to all interested in Jung, Neumann, Analytical Psychology and the history of psychoanalytical thinking." - Erel Shalit, editor of Erich Neumann’s Jacob and Esau: The Collective Symbolism of the Brother Motif (2016)

"The author’s outstanding style makes the book a pleasure to read." - Information Philosophie, 2015, No. 2/2015 (Philosophical Quaterly)

From the Publisher