The Kore, Greek for Virgin, is a mysterious figure. Youthful and elusive, the Kore personifies an archetypal state wherein a person becomes one-in-herself.

In C.G. Jung’s essay “The Psychological Aspects of the Kore” (1951), he makes the astonishing statement that the Kore is a Self-figure for women and has a power that is equivalent to that of the Mother. These two rarely discussed ideas have significance for women’s psychology and have a direct bearing on the development of feminine consciousness in both women and men. Who is this figure that is accorded such psychological power and significance?

Drawing from her book The Kore Goddess: A Mythology and Psychology (2021), in this lecture, Dr. Safron Rossi will draw out the pattern of the Kore through archaic Greek statues in order to discern how and where the Kore appears in life and plays a critical role in individuation.

Safron Rossi, PhD., Mythological Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she is on the Core Faculty in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies MA/Ph.D. program. Dr. Rossi teaches courses on mythology, symbolism, archetypal cosmology & astrology, and scholarly praxis. For many years she was Curator of the Joseph Campbell, James Hillman, and Marija Gimbutas manuscript collections at Opus Archives. Her writing and scholarly studies focus on Greek mythology, archetypal psychology, archetypal astrology, and goddess traditions. Safron is the author of The Kore Goddess: A Mythology & Psychology (2021), co-editor of Jung on Astrology (2017), and editor of Joseph Campbell’s Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine (2013).