"If we recognize Psyche's development as an archetypal process, the Psyche-Eros constellation becomes the archetype of the relation between man and woman. The phase of their engulfment in the dark paradise of the unconscious corresponds to the initial uroboric situation of psychic existence. It is the phase of psychic identity, in which all things are bound together, fused and inextricably intermingled, as in the state of participation mystique. Psychic life is in a phase of dark, that is to say, unconscious mixture, of unconscious stimulation, embrace, and fecundation. And the symbolism of a Psyche united with Eros in the darkness is eminently suited to this universal interrelation of contents in the collective unconscious. Psyche's act, as we have seen, brings with it a new psychic situation. Love and hate, light and darkness, conscious and unconscious enter into conflict with one another. This is the phase of the separation of the original parents, in which the principle of opposition comes into being. The light of consciousness with its power of analysis and separation breaks into the preceding situation and transforms unconscious identity into a polar relation of opposites. But this opposition was constellated in Psyche's unconscious even before her act; in fact, it has led to her act. The embrace of Eros and Psyche in the darkness represents the elementary but unconscious attraction of opposites, which impersonally bestows life but is not yet human. But the coming of light makes Eros "visible," it manifests the phenomenon of psychic love, hence of all human love, as the human and higher form of the archetype of relatedness. It is only the completion of Psyche's development, effected in the course of her search for the invisible Eros, that brings with it the highest manifestation of the archetype of relatedness: a divine Eros joined with a divine Psyche. Psyche's individual love for Eros as love in the light is not only an essential element, it is the essential element in feminine individuation. Feminine individuation and the spiritual development of the feminine—and herein lies the basic significance of this myth—are always effected through love. Through Eros, through her love of him, Psyche develops not only toward him, but toward herself." — Erich Neumann, Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine