The Great Mother
Magna Mater
The mother behind every mother, who gives life and takes it back.
The Great Mother: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Jung distinguished the personal mother from the archetype behind her: the Great Mother, who nourishes and devours. On one side he set solicitude and sympathy, the magic authority of the female, a wisdom beyond reason, all that cherishes and sustains; on the other the secret and the hidden, the abyss, the world of the dead, what devours, seduces, and poisons, what is inescapable like fate.
He listed her symbols: the earth and the sea, the city and the church, the cave, the well, the vessel, the garden, the moon, the cow and other helpful animals.
The Great Mother: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Isis, Demeter, Cybele, Kali, the Virgin, the witch of the fairy tale and the fairy godmother, Mother Earth herself. Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother gathered her images from every continent.
From the Sources
Jung writes that every obstacle on a man's path wears the features of the 'terrible mother', who paralyses his energy with a backward longing, while in each conquest he wins again the 'smiling love and life-giving mother'.
“Every obstacle which obstructs his life’s path, and threatens his ascent, wears the shadowy features of the “terrible mother,” who paralyzes his energy with the consuming poison of the stealthy, retrospective longing. In each conquest he wins again the smiling love and life-giving mother”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, Chapter VII, 'The Dual Mother Rôle', closing paragraph. Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
The Homeric Hymn to Earth, mother of all, tells her that men are blessed through her in their children and harvests, and that it belongs to her to give the means of life to mortal men and to take it away.
“Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away.”
Hesiod, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, Homeric Hymn XXX, 'To Earth the Mother of All', ll. 1-16. Translator: Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Project Gutenberg eBook #348). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype” (1938/1954), CW 9i
- Symbols of Transformation (1912/1952), CW 5, “Symbols of the Mother and of Rebirth” and “The Dual Mother”
- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (1955)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Collective unconscious.
Also among Parents and Elders
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Great Mother.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/great-mother.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
The Dead (The ancestors, the departed) · The Sea · The Crystal (The axial system) · The House
Nearby in the alphabet: The Gorgon: The face that turns to stone. The Grail: The vessel found by the one who asks the right question. Green: The blessed greenness of living things. Hair: Strength and vitality, and what grows unbidden.