Psychological Development in Myth
My presentation at the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies (JSSS) conference about Earth and Psyche considered the role of the feminine and the Underworld in the process of psychological transformation through the ancient Greek myth about Theseus and Peirithoos. The myth also illuminates the consequences of the masculine's attempt at dominating the feminine.
While enduring a time of deep depression, C.G. Jung, the founder of depth psychology, wrote the following words in a letter to Freud: "Essentially… what is keeping me hidden is the katabasis to the realm of the Mothers, where, as we know, Theseus and Peirithoos remained stuck, grown fast to the rocks. But in time I shall come up again. These last days I have clawed my way considerably nearer to the surface. So please do forbear with me a while longer. I shall bring all sorts of wonderful things with me ad majorem gloriam psychoanalysis."
Jung found his dark night of the soul to be a challenging yet rewarding time. It involved an encounter with his unconscious, which significantly informed his psychology and redefined his relationship with Freud. Initially, Jung was Freud's protege, but after his trip to the psychological depths, he realized they had significant theoretical differences, particularly about the feminine and the unconscious. As a result,
Jung ended up going his own way.
Rather than pathologizing this time as a depression that needed to be snapped out of, Jung experienced it as a time of transformation. He found that during dark times, the ego's dominance is challenged, and our beliefs about who we think we are and what we feel are important seem to disintegrate to make room for our soul. Jung noted that it isn't easy to claw back out of these dark times, which many of us who've had such experiences know.
First of all, the myth…
Theseus and Peirithoos were two Greek kings with one of mythology's most famous male friendships. Theseus was the king of Athens and was known for his intelligence and bravery. He was the son of Poseidon, the God of the Sea. Peirithoos was known for being Theseus's sidekick. These two Demi-gods were going through a mid-life crisis and decided that since they were sons of Gods, they deserved to marry the daughters of Zeus. Thus, they hatched a plan to help each other kidnap Zeus's daughters to be their wives. Theseus chose the young Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world. However, she was only 12 years old and too young to marry, so Theseus planned on holding her captive until she came of age. Peirithoos was even more ambitious and set his sights on Persephone, Queen of the Underworld and the wife of Hades, King of the Underworld. Peirithoos's choice of Persephone is particularly significant as Persephone represents the power of the unconscious and the feminine mysteries. According to Jung, Persephone represents the soul or the Self.
This wasn't Persephone's first kidnapping as she had already been taken once from the Upperworld by Hades into the Underworld and subsequently rescued by her mother, Demeter. While Persephone was in the Underworld, she ate seven pomegranate seeds, which was forbidden, so she was forced to remain in the Underworld for part of the year. In the other part of the year, she could re-emerge and return to her mother in the Upperworld. Thus, she and her mother have come to represent the archetypal experience of birth, death, and rebirth cycle characterized by the seasons and agriculture. Persephone and Demeter led the Eleusinian mysteries, which were secret rituals of transformation in ancient Greece. One of the goals of the rituals was to take the individual on a spiritual journey back to the unconscious, which is our energy source. This reflects Jung's experience on his trip into the Underworld and is similar to what many people go through when they experience a crisis.
Peirithoos and Theseus capture Helen and hide her away with Theseus's mom. Next, they descend into the Underworld to kidnap Persephone. When they arrive, Hades, Persephone's husband, welcomes them with open arms and tells them to sit down. So, Theseus and Peirithoos make themselves comfortable, utterly unaware that they are sitting on the stone Chairs of Forgetting. All newly dead souls sit on the chairs to forget their human memories, including their identity. When the men sit down, their flesh grows to the stones, particularly their thighs, and the Furies, the grotesque underworld goddesses of revenge, surround them.
Luckily for the two men, the great hero, Hercules, was also passing through the Underworld. He was on his final labor to return Hades' three-headed dog, Cerberus, from the Underworld. Hercules managed to free Theseus, but Theseus's thighs and buttocks remained stuck to the chair- which is apparently the reason that all Greeks have lean thighs. But as Hercules tried to save Peirithoos, the earth shook, and Peirithoos was left stuck there forever. Perhaps his crime of attempting to steal Persephone, soul, was far too great to be forgiven by the Gods.
One way we can look at the men's attempts to kidnap Helen and Persephone is as a representation of the patriarchal's desire to dominate and repress the feminine. The myth also shows us a lot about the process of psychological maturation and how these journeys into the dark can be a time of transformation. The God of the Underworld, Hades, is often pictured with a cornucopia because, in ancient times, harvests were kept underground to avoid the heat, so the Underworld was considered a prosperous place.
A critical part of psychological development is an awareness of and transcendence of the ego, meaning that we realize that who we think we are- isn't who we truly are. By going beyond our ego, we can connect to our whole personality, the totality of our psyche, our uniqueness, what Jung called the Self. Jung experienced this loss of ego during his katabasis. He talked about letting go of his identity, attitudes, and heroic idealism. So like Peirithoos and Theseus stuck to the rocks, we must forget who we think we are.
And then we can remember who we truly are by re-engaging with who we were as children. During his katabasis, Jung remembered his childhood world when he was 10 or 11 years old. He recognized that he had to do this to reconnect with his young creative life, which he did by playing 'childish games' and by accumulating stones and building structures with them. Stones are found in many of Jung's writing, including references to the Philosopher's stone that alchemists use. Jung believed that stones symbolized our life force's eternal and mysterious aspects.
Being stuck to the rocks is about forgetting who we have become and remembering who we are by nature. It is a time of being in the unconscious, letting go of the ego, and finding our uniqueness and, hopefully, our life force. It is also about meeting the shadow. Theseus and Peirithoos also find themselves surrounded by the Furies, the female underworld deities of vengeance and justice. The Furies were known for being hideous looking with serpents in their hair and bat wings. They were not evil by nature, and the good and innocent had nothing to fear from them, unlike the wrongdoers they tormented. The Furies, however, were often identified with spirits of the earth's fertility, just as our shadow, as scary as it may be, is fertile and full of life. Facing these hidden, "scary" parts of ourselves is part of psychological development.
The photograph is of a frieze on the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, often called the Theseion, after Theseus because he was the hero of Athens. The images are of Theseus fighting the Centaurs, the mythical creatures that are half-man and half-horse.