Following the heartbreaking second loss of his bride, Eurydice, to the darkness of the Underworld, Orpheus attempts to cross the Styx yet once again, to plead for his beloved, but Charon refuses to ferry him across a second time. The gods of the Underworld give orders that Orpheus not be allowed entrance again until his death. Deeply distraught, he sits on the shore of the great river for seven days, taking no sustenance. His tears and troubled thoughts are his…
The archetypal representations (images and ideas) mediated to us by the unconscious should not be confused with the archetype as such. They are very varied structures which all point back to one essentially “irrepresentable” basic form. The latter is characterized by certain formal elements and by certain fundamental meanings, although these can be grasped only approximately. The archetype as such is a psychoid factor that belongs, as it were, to the invisible, ultraviolet end of the psychic spectrum. It…
The story of Orpheus provides clues from the collective unconscious as to how the human soul, guided by the daimones, moves through life toward death. The myth gives us a tragic picture of one who, through implementing his innate abilities to the fullest, erects a strong and mighty soul-house during his sojourn through the world, only to have it demolished before his eyes. The story reveals the pathologization of soul that ensues, the mournful lament at the loss of…