Description
Book SynopsisWhere does science end and religion begin? Can spiritual images and feelings be understood on a neurobiological level without dismissing their power and mystery?
In this book, psychiatrist Erik Goodwyn addresses these questions by reviewing decades of research, putting together a compelling argument that the emotional imagery of myth and dreams can be traced to our deep brain physiology, and importantly, how a sensitive look at this data reveals why mythic or religious symbols are indeed more godlike than we might have imagined.
The Neurobiology of the Gods weaves together Jungian depth psychology with research in evolutionary psychology, neuroanatomy, cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology, mental imagery, dream research, and metaphor theory into a comprehensive model of how our brains contribute to the recurrent images of dreams, myth, religion and even hallucinations. Divided into three sections, this book provides:
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Trade Review
"[This book] is integrative and explains a great deal for people who have been perplexed by the difficulty of the Jungian corpus. Importantly, it lays a groundwork that might inspire other readers, both technical and nontechnical, to take a look at Jung as someone who built up astonishingly current concepts while living in a world that is now two centuries gone."- Richard Gray, PsyCritiques, August 2012, Vol. 57
Table of Contents
Part I: Definitions and Foundations. Symbols, Biology and Depth Psychology. Foundations. Mental Images, Symbolic Images and "Archetypal" Images. Part II: Individual Symbols. Human and Animal Spirits. The Anima/Feminine Symbols. The Animus/Masculine Symbols. The Mother. The Father. The Child. The Shadow. The Dreamscape. Deep Archetypes – Time, Number, Causation. Complex Recurrent Symbols and Self Symbols. Part III: Conclusions. Meaning. Molecules to Mandalas. Appendix: Affective Neuroscience.
