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.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Is the only way up?
Paul Bishop
Part I: Katábasis in Greek and Latin Literature
1. Psycho-cosmic descent in ancient Greece: from abyss to self-containment
Richard Seaford
2. Katabasis in reverse: Heraclitus, the archaic, and the abyss
Paul Bishop
3. Virgil, epicureanism, and unseemly behaviour
Terence Dawson
4. The Neoplatonic katabasis of the soul to the world of the senses: Language as a tool for regaining self-consciousness
Maria Chriti
5. Acting out, science fiction and Lucian’s True History
Leslie Gardner
Part II: Katábasis, Goddesses, and Saints
6. Inanna’s descent to the netherworld and analytical psychology: What has the mistress of all the lands done?
Catriona Miller
7. Katabasis in an ancient Indian myth: Savitri Encounters Yama
Sulagna Sengupta
8. Katabasis in middle eastern female hagiography: a post-Jungian perspective
Roula-Maria Dib
Part III: Katábasis in Theory
9. Raising hell: Freud’s katabatic metaphors in The Interpretation of Dreams
Jonathan Shann
10. Orestes, Katabasis, and aggrieved masculine entitlement
Kurt Lampe
11. Regression, Nekyia, and involution in the thought of Jung and Deleuze
Christian McMillan
Epilogue
Salon Noir
Ruth Padel