Elementary and Transformative Character

In The Great Mother, Neumann analyzes the archetype of the Feminine through two crossed axes he calls the elementary character and the transformative character. The distinction organizes every stage of the archetype.

The elementary character is the Feminine as it contains, holds, nourishes, binds. It is the vessel-body: “the body containing the psyche… the world of ‘inner’ values… as though they were contained ‘in’ us, in our body-vessel” (Neumann 1955, par. 20). In its positive aspect it is the Good Mother; in its negative aspect, the Terrible Devouring Mother.

The transformative character is the Feminine as it provokes change, initiation, ordeal. “Even where the transformative character of the Feminine appears as a negative, hostile, and provocative element, it compels tension, change, and an intensification of the personality. In this way an extreme exertion of the ego is provoked and its capacity for creative transformation is directly and indirectly ‘stimulated’” (Neumann 1955, par. 18). Its iconography moves along a single deep chain of vessel-symbols: “the vessel in which this spiritual birth takes place appears as a magic vessel and as a vessel of transformation, as baptismal font, as grail, and finally as alchemistic retort” (Neumann 1955, par. 26).

The schema’s telos is the spiritual transformation character, “in which the development of feminine psychology reaches its culmination” (Neumann 1955, par. 34). The two characters are not sequential but simultaneously present at every stage, shifting in dominance.

Relationships

• neumann-great-mother
• anima
• coniunctio

Primary sources

• neumann-great-mother (Neumann 1955)