Hero Stage

Neumann uses myths, particularly myths of the hero in the process of surviving various monsters that can be equated with aspects of the unconscious, to find evidence of the ego’s emergence, survival, and progressive strengthening, thus organizing the myths along a continuum of the hero’s progress to generate a stage-by-stage model of ego development.

Beebe summarizes Neumann’s foundational argument that the hero myth supplies the template for a stage-by-stage developmental model of ego-consciousness, while also noting Hillman’s critique of its Apollonic bias.

Beebe, John, Energies and Patterns in Psychological Type: The Reservoir of Consciousness, 2017thesis

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It would appear from my studies that the hero myth is the first stage in the differentiation of the psyche. I have suggested that it seems to go through a fourfold cycle by which

Jung identifies the hero myth as the inaugural stage in the differentiation of the psyche, proposing a fourfold developmental cycle of which heroic striving forms the initial arc.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Man and His Symbols, 1964thesis

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The male collective is the source of all the taboos, laws, and institutions that are destined to break the… The opposed group of male societies and secret organizations is dominated by the archetype of the hero and by the dragon-fight mythology, which represents the next stage of conscious development.

Neumann establishes that the hero archetype and its associated dragon-fight mythology define a discrete stage of conscious development succeeding the matriarchal stage, institutionalised in male initiation societies.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019thesis

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The hero is an ego hero; that is, he represents the struggles of consciousness and the ego against the unconscious. The masculinization and strengthening of the ego, apparent in the hero’s martial deeds, enable him to overcome his fear of the dragon.

Neumann defines the hero stage as precisely the phase of ego-masculinization in which consciousness marshals its forces against the unconscious, emblematised by the dragon fight.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019thesis

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The Hero’s downfall is that he doesn’t know and is unable to acknowledge his own limitations. A boy or a man under the power of the Shadow Hero cannot really realize that he is a mortal being. Denial of death—the ultimate limitation on human life—is his specialty.

Moore argues that while the Hero stage is developmentally necessary, its shadow produces an inflation characterised by denial of mortality and an inability to transcend conquest-oriented consciousness.

Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990thesis

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if we access the Hero energy appropriately, we will push ourselves up against our limitations. We will adventure to the frontiers of what we can be as boys, and from there, if we can make the transition, we will be prepared for our initiation into manhood.

Moore reframes the hero stage as a necessary but transitional structure whose healthy function is to prepare the individual for initiation into mature masculine identity.

Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990thesis

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An individual psyche develops (as does the hero myth) from a primitive, childish stage… The first stage might be represented by the carefree play of children… A later stage produces the idealism and self-sacrifice of late adolescence.

Jung draws a direct parallel between the developmental stages of individual psychology and the sequential stages of the hero myth, grounding the hero stage in observable phases of psychic maturation.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Man and His Symbols, 1964supporting

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Only in this struggle does the hero show himself a hero and change his nature; for whether he is the doer who redeems or the conqueror who liberates, what he transforms him too. Therefore the third and last stage is the transformation myth.

Neumann positions the hero’s battle as itself constituting the transformative core of the stage, arguing that the transformation myth supersedes and completes the heroic phase.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting

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Further transformations run true to the hero-myth. The theme of ‘mighty feats’ is generally absent, but on the other hand the mythical dangers play all the greater part. At this stage there is usually another identification, this time with the hero, whose role is attractive for a variety of reasons.

Jung observes that in clinical process, therapeutic regression toward the child archetype gives way to an identification with the hero — a stage potentially dangerous to psychic equilibrium if the hero-identification cannot be dissolved.

Jung, C. G. and Kerényi, C., Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, 1949supporting

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His heroism transforms him into a fully grown male, independent enough to overcome the power of the… By conquering his terror of the female, by entering into the womb, the abyss, the peril of the unconscious, he weds himself triumphantly with the Great Mother.

Neumann reads the Oedipus myth as exemplifying the hero stage’s core dynamic: conquest of the Terrible Mother through courage enables transition to full masculine independence.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting

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The true hero is one who brings the new and shatters the fabric of old values, namely the father-dragon which, backed by the whole weight of tradition and the power of the collective, ever strives to obstruct the birth of the new.

Neumann extends the hero stage beyond ego-formation to the cultural domain, identifying the hero as the agent who ruptures calcified collective values on behalf of emerging consciousness.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting

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He or she is still at the beginning. He or she is still inexperienced and well-advised to not overestimate his or her ability since he or she could quickly experience what happened to the sorcerer’s apprentice.

Banzhaf illustrates, via Tarot and Grail symbolism, the hero stage’s characteristic tension between newly assumed outer competence and unfinished inner development.

Banzhaf, Hajo, Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, 2000supporting

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The hero, as we have said, fights the androgynous figure of the uroboros. In the cosmic projection of celestial battles we find, at the outset, the battle between light and darkness, where darkness is associated with a number of symbolic components, and light is always identified with the hero.

Neumann situates the hero stage cosmologically, showing that the hero’s battle with the uroboros is the mythological expression of the primordial conflict between emerging consciousness and the undifferentiated ground.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting

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The cask not only imprisons the hero; it also prevents him from being drowned. This can be compared to a neurosis, which tends to isolate the individual and in that way to protect him. The condition of neurotic loneliness is positive when it protects the growth of a new possibility of life.

Von Franz reads the night-sea journey motif within the hero stage as psychologically analogous to the protective function of neurosis, framing the hero’s ordeal as an incubatory phase of inner transformation.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, 1970supporting

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What the hero kills is only the terrible side of the female, and this he does in order to set free the… the youth’s fear of the devouring Great Mother and the infant’s beatific surrender to the uroboric Good Mother are both elementary forms of the male’s experience of the female.

Neumann clarifies that the hero stage’s combat with the feminine is selective — targeting the Terrible Mother — and constitutes the precondition for genuine male-female relationship.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting

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Here, too, emotional and archetypal invasions threaten the ego as, on its heroic journey to the underworld, it voluntarily discards the limitations and defenses of conscious development.

Neumann notes that in individuation’s later phases the heroic journey motif recurs, the ego willingly surrendering conscious defenses to encounter deeper archetypal layers — echoing but transcending the original hero stage.

Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019aside

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In many of these stories the early weakness of the hero is balanced by the appearance of strong ‘tutelary’ figures—or guardians—who enable him to perform the superhuman tasks that he cannot accomplish unaided.

Jung highlights the structural role of tutelary figures within hero mythology, signalling that the hero stage’s development depends on transpersonal assistance rather than ego-strength alone.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Man and His Symbols, 1964aside

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