Anne Baring

Anne Baring is a Jungian Analyst, author and co-author of seven books including The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image. The ground of her work is an interest in the spiritual traditions of different cultures and the psychological causes of human suffering. During the 1980’s Anne embarked on writing The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image with Jules Cashford, her friend and fellow analyst who had specialised at university in philosophy and English literature. The book took them ten years to write. What interested them most was the influence of the sacred image on Western civilisation and the need to integrate the masculine and feminine principles. The quest to explore this theme led them back to the Neolithic and Palaeolithic eras and the origins of the sacred image, tracing its development through the Bronze Age and beyond.

Anne and Jules wanted to know why and how the image of deity changed from being feminine to masculine (Great Mother to Great Father) at a specific historical time (c.2000 B.C.) and how this change came to polarise spirit and nature, mind and soul, in human consciousness. They discovered that the polarisation originating so long ago has deeply influenced Judeo-Christian civilisation and the paradigm of reality which presently governs our culture, leading ultimately to the ecological and spiritual crisis we now face.