The Descent of the Soul and the Archaic explores the motif of kátabasis (a "descent" into an imaginal underworld) and the importance it held for writers from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on its place in psychoanalytic theory.
This collection of chapters builds on Jung’s insights into katabasis and nekyia as models for deep self-descent and the healing process which follows. The contributors explore ancient and modern notions of the self, as obtained through a "descent" to a deeper level of imaginal experience. With an awareness of the difficulties of applying contemporary psychological precepts to ancient times, the contributors explore various modes of self-formation as a process of discovery. Presented in three parts, the chapters assess contexts and texts, goddesses, and theoretical alternatives.
This book will be of interest to scholars and analysts working in wide-ranging fields, including classical studies, all schools of psychoanalysis, especially Jung’s, and postmodern thought, especially the philosophy of Deleuze.
Author(s): Paul Bishop, Terence Dawson, Leslie Gardner
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 248
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Conributors
Introduction: Is the Only Way Up?
Notes
Part I: Katábasis in Greek and Latin Literature
Chapter 1: Psycho-Cosmic Descent in Ancient Greece: From Abyss to Self-Containment
1 Descent to the Underworld in Mystic Initiation
2 The Inner Abyss
3 Parmenides
4 Plato
Notes
Chapter 2: Katabasis in Reverse: Heraclitus, the Archaic, and the Abyss
Hermann Fränkel on Tauler, Heraclitus, and the abyss
Prier on archaic logic
Oppositional structure
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 3: Virgil, Epicureanism, and Unseemly Behaviour: The Epyllion in Georgics 4 and Its Three Katábases
Unbearable Loss (1): Aristaeus and Cyrene
Intuition and Determination: Aristaeus and Proteus
Unbearable Loss (2): Orpheus and Eurydice
The Anábasis : Orpheus Alone
Narratives with a Two-Part Structure
Conclusions
Notes
Chapter 4: The Neoplatonic Katabasis of the Soul to the World of the Senses: Language as a Tool for Regaining Self-Consciousness
Carl Jung and Neoplatonism
Neoplatonic Soul and Self-consciousness
Concluding Remarks
Notes
Chapter 5: Acting Out, Science Fiction and Lucian’s True History
The story
Themes
Tausk
Flying saucers
Forms of ‘acting out’ and Lucian’s truth
Imagination and truth
Lucian and psychology
Notes
Part II: Katábasis, Goddesses, and Saints
Chapter 6: Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld and Analytical Psychology: What Has the Mistress of All the Lands Done? 1
The Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld
Inanna’s Destination: The Great Below
Inanna’s Katabasis : A Tale of Three Deities
Inanna as Transcendent Function
Notes
Chapter 7: Katabasis in an Ancient Indian Myth: Savitri Encounters Yama
The Cultural Sphere of the East
Savitri’s Descent
Katabasis in Myths
The Essence of Solar Descents
Conclusion: Myths in a Post-Colonial Environment
Notes
Chapter 8: Katabasis in Middle Eastern Female Hagiography: A Post-Jungian Perspective
Introduction: What Is New about This Study
What Is Katabasis ?
Stories of the Saints
Saint Thecla
Saint Barbara
Saint Marina the Monk
Common Factors in These Hagiographies
Going against the Current and Separating from the Feminine
The Identification with the Masculine
Katabasis, Nature Landscapes, Reconnection: from Institution to Instinct
The Effect of Katabasis
Conclusion
Notes
Part III: Katábasis in Theory
Chapter 9: Raising Hell: Freud’s Katabatic Metaphors in The Interpretation of Dreams
Tectonic Titans and Labours in the Depths
Coincidentia Oppositorum
The Road to Hell (Parts 1 and 2)
Return to Juno
Notes
Chapter 10: Orestes, Katabasis, and Aggrieved Masculine Entitlement (in Athens, Rhegium, and Today)
Orestes: Insane Badness or Exemplary Mental Health?
Orestes and Katabasis
Orestes at Rhegium
Katabasis in Aeschylus’ Oresteia
Aggrieved Masculine Entitlement and the Need for Katabasis
Notes
Chapter 11: Regression, Nekyia, and Involution in the Thought of Jung and Deleuze
Deleuze on Jung: Early Influences and Conceptual Affinities
Nekyia and Involution
Concluding Remarks
Notes
Epilogue: Salon Noir1
Note
Index
