Not only is the figure of Demeter and the Kore in its threefold aspect as maiden, mother, and Hecate not unknown to the psychology of the unconscious, it is even something of a practical problem:
FIGURE CORRESPONDING
TO THE KORE IN A MAN
The “Kore” has her psychological counterpart in those archetypes which I have called the Self or supraordinate personality on the one hand, and the anima on the other
CW9.1 ¶ 306THE KORE IN A WOMAN
The figure corresponding to the Kore in a woman is generally a double one, i.e., a mother and a maiden which is to say that she appears now as the one, now as the other. From this I would conclude, for a start, that in the formation of the Demeter-Kore myth the feminine influence so far outweighed the masculine that the latter had practically no significance. The man's role in the Demeter myth is really only that of seducer or conqueror
CW9.1 ¶ 310VARIOUS FORMS IN WHICH
THE KORE APPEARS
As a matter of practical observation, the Kore often appears in woman as an unknown young girl, not infrequently as Gretchen or the unmarried mother
CW9.1 ¶ 311Another frequent modulation is the dancer, who is often formed by borrowings from classical knowledge, in which case the “maiden” appears as the corybant, maenad, or nymph
An occasional variant is the nixie or water-sprite, who betrays her superhuman nature by her fishtail
Sometimes the Kore- and mother-figures slither down altogether to the animal kingdom, the favourite representatives then being the cat or the snake or the bear, or else some black monster of the underworld like the crocodile, or other salamander-like, saurian creatures
The maiden's helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice
CW9.1 ¶ 311Often there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the innocent child falls victim
Sometimes it is a true nekyia, a descent into Hades and a quest for the “treasure hard to attain,” occasionally connected with orgiastic sexual rites or offerings of menstrual blood to the moon
Oddly enough, the various tortures and obscenities are carried out by an “Earth Mother.” There are drinkings of blood and bathings in blood, also crucifixions
THE MAIDEN IN
CASE HISTORIES
The maiden who crops up in case histories differs not inconsiderably from the vaguely flower-like Kore in that the modern figure is more sharply delineated and not nearly so “unconscious,” as the following examples will show
CW9.1 ¶ 311The figures corresponding to Demeter and Hecate are supraordinate, not to say over-life-size “Mothers” ranging from the Pietà type to the Baubo type. The unconscious, which acts as a counterbalance to woman's conventional innocuousness, proves to be highly inventive in this latter respect [the Baubo type.] I can recall only very few cases where Demeter's own noble figure in its pure form breaks through as an image rising spontaneously from the unconscious
CW9.1 ¶ 312I remember a case, in fact, where a maiden-goddess appears clad all in purest white, but carrying a black monkey in her arms
CW9.1 ¶ 312The Earth Mother is always chthonic and is occasionally related to the moon, either through the blood-sacrifice already mentioned, or through a child-sacrifice, or else because she is adorned with a sickle moon
In pictorial or plastic representations the Mother is dark deepening to black, or red (these being her principal colours), and with a primitive or animal expression of face
In form she not infrequently resembles the neolithic ideal of the “Venus” of Brassempouy or that of Willendorf, or again the sleeper of Hal Saflieni
Now and then I have come across multiple breasts, arranged like those of a sow
The Earth Mother plays an important part in the woman's unconscious, for all her manifestations are described as “powerful.” This shows that in such cases the Earth Mother element in the conscious mind is abnormally weak and requires strengthening
EARTH MOTHER AS A
`SUPRAORDINATE PERSONALITY'
In view of all this it is, I admit, hardly understandable why such figures should be reckoned as belonging to the type of “supraordinate personality.” In a scientific investigation, however, one has to disregard moral or aesthetic prejudices and let the facts speak for themselves
CW9.1 ¶ 313The maiden is often described as not altogether human in the usual sense; she is either of unknown or peculiar origin, or she looks strange or undergoes strange experiences, from which one is forced to infer the maiden's extraordinary, myth-like nature
CW9.1 ¶ 313EARTH MOTHER AS DIVINE BEING
Equally and still more strikingly, the Earth Mother is a divine beingin the classical sense
CW9.1 ¶ 313Moreover, she does not by any means always appear in the guise of Baubo, but, for instance, more like Queen Venus in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, though she is invariably heavy with destiny
UNAESTHETIC FORMS OF
THE EARTH MOTHER
The often unaesthetic forms of the Earth Mother are in keeping with a prejudice of the modern feminine unconscious; this prejudice was lacking in antiquity
The underworld nature of Hecate, who is closely connected with Demeter, and Persephone's fate both point nevertheless to the dark side of the human psyche, though not to the same extent as the modern material
Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter, extend the feminine consciousness both upwards and downwards. They add an “older and younger,” “stronger and weaker” dimension to it and widen out the narrowly limited conscious mind bound in space and time, giving it intimations of a greater and more comprehensive personality which has a share in the eternal course of things
CW9.1 ¶ 316We can hardly suppose that myth and mystery were invented for any conscious purpose; it seems much more likely that they were the involuntary revelation of a psychic, but unconscious, pre-condition
CW9.1 ¶ 316The psyche pre-existent to consciousness (e.g., in the child) participates in the maternal psyche on the one hand, while on the other it reaches across to the daughter's psyche
CW9.1 ¶ 316EVERY MOTHER CONTAINS HER DAUGHTER,
EVERY DAUGHTER HER MOTHER
We could therefore say that every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and that every woman extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter
CW9.1 ¶ 316UNCERTAINTY AS REGARDS `TIME'
This participation and intermingling give rise to that peculiar uncertainty as regards time: a woman lives earlier as a mother, later as a daughter
CW9.1 ¶ 316The conscious experience of these ties [of mother and daughter] produces the feeling that her life is spread out over generationsthe first step towards the immediate experience and the conviction of being outside time, which brings with it a feeling of immortality
CW9.1 ¶ 316The individual's life is elevated into a type, indeed it becomes the archetype of woman's fate in general. This leads to a restoration or apocatastasis of the lives of her ancestors, who now, through the bridge of the momentary individual, pass down into the generations of the future
CW9.1 ¶ 316INDIVIDUAL GIVEN A PLACE AND
MEANING IN LIFE OF THE GENERATIONS
An experience of this kind gives the individual a place and a meaning in the life of the generations, so that all unnecessary obstacles are cleared out of the way of the life-stream that is to flow through her. At the same time the individual is rescued from her isolation and restored to wholeness. All ritual preoccupation with archetypes ultimately has this aim and this result
CW9.1 ¶ 316It is immediately clear to the psychologist what cathartic and at the same rejuvenating effects must flow from the Demeter cult into the feminine psyche, and what a lack of psychic hygiene characterizes our culture, which no longer knows the kind of wholesome experience afforded by Eleusinian emotions
CW9.1 ¶ 317ARCHETYPAL IMAGES IN
DREAMS OR FANTASIES
It does not seem to me superfluous to give a number of examples from my case histories which bring out the occurrence of archetypal images in dreams or fantasies
CW9.1 ¶ 319[The following examples appear as separate subject headings in this dictionary]:
CW9.1 ¶ 319Vision : Young Girl Rides on a Bull
CW9.1 ¶ 323Dream : Sky-Woman
CW9.1 ¶ 340Dream : Bear-Goddess
CW9.1 ¶ 342Dream : Girl Hangs on a Cross
CW9.1 ¶ 354Dream : White Bird Changes into a Girl
CW9.1 ¶ 359Dream : Blind Dancer
CW9.1 ¶ 360Dream : Daughter Appears as a Ghost
CW9.1 ¶ 361Dream : Gothic Madonna
CW9.1 ¶ 362Dream : Black-Clad Countess
CW9.1 ¶ 363Dream : Female Snake
CW9.1 ¶ 364Dream : Bird Speaks in a Voice
CW9.1 ¶ 365Dream : Woman Sits Atop Church-Spire
CW9.1 ¶ 366Dream : Female Lavatory Attendant
CW9.1 ¶ 367Dream : Goddess Clad in Blue
CW9.1 ¶ 368Dream : Woman Takes the Place of an Altar
CW9.1 ¶ 369COMMENTARY
In all these dreams the central figure is a mysterious feminine being with qualities like those of no woman known to the dreamer. The unknown is described as such in the dreams themselves, and reveals her extraordinary nature firstly by her power to change shape and secondly by her paradoxical ambivalence. Every conceivable shade of meaning glitters in her, from the highest to the lowest
CW9.1 ¶ 370It seems clear enough that the man's anima found occasion for projection in the Demeter cult. The Kore doomed to her subterranean fate, the two-faced mother, and the theriomorphic aspects of both afforded the anima ample opportunity to reflect herself, shimmering and equivocal, in the Eleusinian cult, or rather to experience herself there and fill the celebrants with her unearthly essence, to their lasting gain. For a man, anima experiences are always of immense and abiding significance
CW9.1 ¶ 382THE DE METER-KORE MYTH
But the Demeter-Kore myth is far too feminine to have been merely the result of an anima-projection. Although the anima can, as we have said, experience herself in Demeter-Kore, she is yet of a wholly different nature
CW9.1 ¶ 383She is in the highest degree femme à homme, whereas Demeter-Kore exists on the plane of mother-daughter experience, which is alien to man and shuts him out
CW9.1 ¶ 383In fact, the psychology of the Demeter cult bears all the features of a matriarchal order of society, where the man is an indispensable but on the whole disturbing factor
CW9.1 ¶ 383