Friedrich Creuzer: Mythographer whose influence helped found psychology

by | Jul 21, 2024 | 0 comments

Who was Friedrich Creuzer?

Friedrich Creuzer (1771-1858) was a groundbreaking German philologist and archaeologist whose pioneering research into ancient mythology and symbolism had a significant impact on the fields of comparative religion, anthropology, and psychology in the 19th century. Creuzer’s magnum opus “Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen” (“Symbolism and Mythology of the Ancient Peoples, Especially the Greeks”), first published in 1810-1812, offered a sweeping reinterpretation of ancient myths and religious symbols, arguing that they expressed profound spiritual truths and reflected the earliest stages in the development of human consciousness.

Creuzer’s approach to mythology emphasized the symbolic and allegorical dimensions of ancient religious narratives. He believed that myths were not merely fanciful stories, but encoded esoteric wisdom and philosophical insights passed down from an ancient Eastern origin. Creuzer argued that the deepest truths about God, nature and the human soul were originally expressed by the priests of ancient Egypt, India, Persia and other Eastern cultures in a symbolic language that had to be deciphered through careful interpretation. These mystical doctrines then spread to the West, finding new expression in the mythologies of the Greeks, Romans and other ancient peoples.

For Creuzer, the key to decoding these sacred symbols was to uncover their hidden allegorical meanings. He proposed that ancient myths used concrete images and sensory language to convey abstract spiritual concepts that transcended rational understanding. The gods and heroes of mythology were not to be taken literally, but seen as personified representations of elemental forces, psychological faculties, or states of consciousness. Osiris, Dionysus, Mithras and Christ, for example, were all symbolic manifestations of the universal spiritual principle of the dying and resurrecting godman.

While some of Creuzer’s interpretations may seem far-fetched or unsubstantiated to modern scholars, his work nevertheless had an electrifying effect on the intellectual currents of the early 19th century. His ideas were avidly debated in philosophical and literary circles, influencing Romantic thinkers such as Goethe, Schelling and Schlegel. Creuzer’s attempt to find universal patterns and hidden meanings in the mythologies of different cultures inspired a whole generation of comparative mythology and religion, even as his specific conclusions were contested.

More importantly, Creuzer’s understanding of myths and symbols as expressions of the deepest faculties of the human psyche had a profound impact on the emergence of depth psychology and modern theories of the unconscious in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both Freud and Jung drew extensively on the mythological scholarship of Creuzer and his followers in formulating their conceptions of the psyche and the interpretation of dreams and fantasies. Jung in particular saw myths as the symbolic language of the collective unconscious, carrying timeless psychological truths that could bring insight and healing when integrated into conscious awareness.

Though largely overshadowed today by later mythologists and psychologists, Creuzer’s expansive vision of an inner dimension of the psyche whose depths are revealed through mythic symbolism was groundbreaking. By presenting mythology as a window into the mysteries of the soul, he helped lay the foundations for the modern psychological understanding of the human condition as shaped by unconscious factors beyond the control of the rational mind. At the same time, his attempt to trace all mythology back to a single esoteric tradition originating in the East reflected 19th century Romantic orientalist fantasies that have since been discredited.

Creuzer’s influence can still be felt in certain esoteric and New Age spiritual currents that seek hidden universal truths and correspondences in the world’s religions and mythologies. His notion that myths and symbols contain timeless wisdom needed for psychological wholeness continues to inspire Jungian and archetypal approaches to psychotherapy and spiritual growth. However, most mainstream scholars today reject Creuzer’s specific theories about the Eastern origins of mythology and his speculative allegorical interpretations. The dominant approach is to study each mythological tradition in its own cultural and historical context, using stricter etymological and comparative methods.

Still, Creuzer deserves recognition as a pioneering thinker whose provocative ideas challenged the rationalist prejudices of his age and opened up new dimensions in the understanding of ancient religion and the human psyche. By revealing the mythic and symbolic underpinnings of consciousness itself, Creuzer’s work continues to enrich and fascinate, even as his specific claims and methods remain controversial. His legacy endures as an important chapter in the history of the modern imagination’s rediscovery of the mythological psyche at the foundations of the human condition.

Jungian Innovators

Carl Jung

James Hillman 

Erich Neumann

Henry Corbin

David Tacey

Robert Moore

Sidra and Hal Stone

John Beebe

Marie-Louise von Franz

Jolande Jacobi

Anthony Stevens 

Thomas Moore

Sonu Shamdasani

Arnold Mindell

James Hollis

Sabina Spielrein

Edward Edinger

 

Jungian Topics

How Psychotherapy Lost its Way

Jung and the New Age

Science and Mysticism

Therapy, Mysticism and Spirituality?

The Shadow

The Symbolism of the Bollingen Stone

What Can the Origins of Religion Teach us about Psychology

The Major Influences from Philosophy and Religions on Carl Jung

The Unconscious as a Game

How to Understand Carl Jung
How to Use Jungian Psychology for Screenwriting and Writing Fiction

The Psychology of Color

The Symbolism of Color in Dreams

How the Shadow Shows up in Dreams

How to read The Red Book 

The Dreamtime

Using Jung to Combat Addiction

Healing the Modern Soul

Jungian Exercises from Greek Myth

Jungian Shadow Work Meditation

The Shadow in Relationships

Free Shadow Work Group Exercise

Post Post-Moderninsm and Post Secular Sacred

Mysticism and Epilepsy

The Origins and History of Consciousness

Archetypes

Jung’s Empirical Phenomenological Method

The Future of Jungian Thought

Jungian Analysis

Subcortical Brain

Labyrinths

The Hero’s Journey

 

Jungian Analysts

Thomas Moore

June Singer

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Robert A Johnson

Emma Jung

Robert Bly

Murray Stein

Barbara Hannah 

John Ryan Haule

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Gerhard Adler

Nathan Schwartz-Salant

Joseph Henderson

Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig

Ginette Paris

Michael Fordham

Esther Harding

Marion Woodman

Steven T Richards

J.B. Rhine and Eugene Osty

 

Anthropology

Neolithic Architecture

Victor Turner

Louise Barett

Allan Shore

Michael Meade

Lionel Corbett

Anthony Stevens

David Abram 

Edward O Wilson

Eliade Mircea 

David Abram

Jacob Burckhardt

Heinrich Zimmer

Arnold van Gennep

Friedrich Creuzer

Theodore Flournoy

Divided Mind

 

Mystics and Gurus 

What is Gnosticism?

Robert Grossette

Meister Eckhart

Kabbalah

Teresa of Avila

Kabbalah and Ein Sof

St. John of the Cross

Simone Weil 

Rumi

D.T. Suzuki

Lao Tzu

Pythagoras

Neoplatonism

Mani

Jan van Ruusbroec

Johannes Tauler 

Angelus Silesius

Martin Buber

Hermes Trismegistus

Jakob Boehme

Emanuel Swedenborg

John Scottus Eriugena

Pseudo-Dionysius

Nicolas Cusas

Amalric of Bena 

Gerhard Dorn

Zosimos

Plotinus

Roberto Asaglioli

 

Philosophy

Anticipating the Meta Modern

Martin Heidegger

Jean Paul Sartre

Peter Sloterdijik

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Gaston Bachelard

Jean Gebser

Gilbert Durand

Friedrich Schelling

Friedrich Nietzsche

Immanuel Kant

Freidrich Hegel 

Ernst Cassirer

Hans-Georg Gadamer

Walter Benjamin

William James

Hannah Arendt

Plato

Paul Riccouer

Plotinus

Alan Watts

Neoplatonism

Aristotle

Socrates

Theodor Adorno

Gilbert Simondon

Arthur Schopenhauer

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Henri Bergson

Saul Kripke

Michel Foucault

Wolfgang von Goethe

Edmund Husserl

 

Spirituality 

Stanislav Grof

Rudolph Steiner

Richard Tarnas 

Ken Wilbur

 

Types of Therapy

Lifespan Integration

QEEG Brain Mapping

Jungian Therapy 

Parts Based Therapy

EMDR 

ETT

Brainspotting

Somatic Experiencing

Meditation and Mindfulness

Neurofeedback

Somatic Trauma Mapping

DBT

Aromatherapy

Personality Psychology

DARVO

Freudian Death Drive

 

Influential Psychologists

Sigmund Freud

Ernest Becker

Fritz Perls 

Virginia Satir

JL Moreno 

Albert Ellis

Carl Rogers

Alfred Adler

Wilhelm Reich 

Eugen Bleuer

Herbert Silberer

Pierre Janet

Milton Erickson

Anna Freud

Gordon Alport

Mary Ainsworth

Harry Harlow

John Watson

Stanley Milgram

Donald Winnicott

Lev Semyonovich

B.F. Skinner

Ivan Pavlov

Kurt Lewin

Jean Piaget

Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Erik Erickson

Abraham Maslow

Theodore Millon

 

Influences on Jung

Who Influenced Carl Jung?

Martin Heidegger

Jean Paul Sartre

Peter Sloterdijik

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Gaston Bachelard

Jean Gebser

Gilbert Durand

Friedrich Schelling

Friedrich Nietzsche

Immanuel Kant

Freidrich Hegel

Ernst Cassirer

Hans-Georg Gadamer Plato 

Neoplatonism 

Gilbert Simondon

Arthur Schopenhauer

Henri Bergson

Wolfgang von Goethe

Martin Buber

Hermes Trismegistus

Jakob Boehme

Emanuel Swedenborg

John Scottus Eriugena

Pseudo-Dionysius

Nicolas Cusas

Amalric of Bena 

Gerhard Dorn

Zosimos

Plotinus

What is Gnosticism?

Robert Grossette

Meister Eckhart

Teresa of Avila

St. John of the Cross

Suhrawardi

Ibn’ Arabi

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 

 

Classical Literature 

The Oresteia

The Ajax

The Women of Trachis

The Elektra

The Philocetes

The Persians

The Medea

The Hippolytus

The Bacchae

Iphigenia in Aulis

Iphigenia in Tauris

Alcestis

Hippolytus

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus at Colonus

Antigone

Seven Against Thebes

The  Suppliants

Prometheus Bound

Helen

Greek Tragedies Influence on Jung

The Psychology of the Peloponesian War

Bibliography and Further Reading

  1. Creuzer, F. (1810-1812). Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen [Symbolism and Mythology of the Ancient Peoples, Especially the Greeks].
  2. Freud, S. (1900). Die Traumdeutung [The Interpretation of Dreams].
  3. Jung, C.G. (1968). The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton University Press.
  4. Goethe, J.W. (Various works on mythology and symbolism)
  5. Schelling, F.W.J. (Various philosophical works influenced by Creuzer)
  6. Schlegel, F. (Works on comparative mythology)
  7. Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon Books.
  8. Eliade, M. (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Harcourt, Brace & World.
  9. Müller, M. (1856). Comparative Mythology: An Essay.
  10. Frazer, J.G. (1890). The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion.
  11. Durkheim, E. (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
  12. Lévi-Strauss, C. (1958). Structural Anthropology.
  13. Otto, R. (1917). Das Heilige [The Idea of the Holy].
  14. Cassirer, E. (1923-1929). Philosophie der symbolischen Formen [The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms].
  15. Neumann, E. (1949). Ursprungsgeschichte des Bewusstseins [The Origins and History of Consciousness].
  16. Bachofen, J.J. (1861). Das Mutterrecht [Mother Right: An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Matriarchy in the Ancient World].
  17. Burkert, W. (1977). Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche [Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical].
  18. Dumézil, G. (1968). Mythe et épopée [Myth and Epic].
  19. Campbell, J. (1968). The Masks of God (4 volumes). Viking Press.
  20. Von Franz, M-L. (1974). Number and Time: Reflections Leading Towards a Unification of Psychology and Physics.
Walter Ong: Orality, Literacy, and the Jesuit Worldview

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I. Who was Walter Ong Walter J. Ong (1912-2003) was an American Jesuit priest, professor of English literature, and cultural and religious historian. Ong made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of literacy studies, media ecology, and the evolution of human...

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