Remember that the ancients did not have "psychology" they had myths instead. The legion of myths and gods and goddesses are at once interpreted as something "out there" and also as simply ways of organizing and describing the inner world of the human psyche. Every great myth can be corresponded with some human psychological process. In the case of depression, this is seen in the mythical descent into the underworld, Hades. "The Persephone experience occurs to us each in sudden depressions, when we feel ourselves caught in hatefulness, cold, numbed, and drawn downward out of life by a force we cannot see, against which we would flee, distractedly thrashing about for naturalistic explanations and comforts for what is happening so darkly. We feel invaded from below, assaulted, and we think of death.
To be raped into the underworld is not the only mode of experiencing it. There are many other modes of descent. But when it comes in this radical fashion, then we may know which mytheme has encased us. We are dragged into Hades' chariot only if we are out in Demeter's green fields, seductively innocent with playmates among flowers. That world has to open up. When the bottom falls out, we feel only the black abyss of despair, but this is not the only way to experience even this mytheme. [In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth] For instance, Hekate was supposedly standing by the whole time, listening or watching [the abduction and rape of Persephone]. There is evidently a perspective that can witness the soul's struggles without the flap of Persephone or the disaster of Demeter. In us is also a dark angel (Hekate was also called angelos), a consciousness that shines in the dark and that witnesses such events...Part of us is not dragged down but always lives there, as Hekate is partly an underworld Goddess. From this vantage point we may observe our own catastrophes with a dark wisdom that expects little else."
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