Man Into Wolf: A Study of Violence, Evolution, and Lycanthropy (Paperback or Softback)

"Man is a wolf to man" - Roman proverb

In this landmark study first published in 1948, Robert Eisler develops a theory of man's dual nature. Homo sapiens is descended from two very different types of ancestors: from gregarious, peaceful, vegetarian gatherers, who lived communally in herds; and from carnivorous, predatory hunters, who "evolved under the pressure of hunger caused by the climatic change at the end of the pluvial period," who donned wolf pelts and imitated the pack hunting of wolves, and who developed "indiscriminate, even cannibalistic pre-datory aggression."

"The great number of ancient Indo-European tribal names, such as Luvians, Lycians, Lucanians, Dacians, Hyrcanians, etc., meaning 'wolf-men' or 'she-wolf-people' found in Italy, Greece, the Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor and North-west Persia, and the numerous Germanic, Italic and Greek personal names meaning 'wolf' and 'she-wolf', clearly prove that the transition from the fruit-gathering herd of 'finders' to the lupine pack of carnivorous hunters was a conscious process accompanied by a deep emotional upheaval still remembered by man's subconscious, superindividual, ancestral memory (Jung), and reflected in the 'superstitions'-i.e. the surviving atavistic beliefs-about 'lycanthropy'. This is the Greek term, formed from λύκος = 'wolf' and άνθρωπία = 'humanity', for the dread folk-lore of men converted into 'wer-wolves'."

Eisler's main thesis is accompanied by an abundance of footnotes providing endless fascinating examples from history and mythology, and by appendices discussing Jungian archetypes, the Roman lupercalia, the Dionysian mysteries of the Greeks, and more.