Spiritual Mythology: Mythology Reveals Power of Descent  

By Marguerite Theophil

Studying the myths of various cultures leads to a better understanding of their social and religious underpinnings. By turning the myths inwards, inviting them into our lives and learning their language of imagery and symbolism, we learn more about ourselves.

In almost every culture, the metaphor of descent serves as a powerful, sacred and mythic image for women. One of the earliest such accounts is the story of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess and Queen of the Upper World. She was worshipped in Sumer from the third millennium BCE (before the common era) to the first millennium BCE.

The myth chronicles her descent to the Underworld, the abode of the dead. On her journey she passes through the seven gates which lead to the inner throne chamber. At each of the seven gates she is required to shed a part of her costume. The items she discards are symbolic representations of her powers in the Upper World.

By the time she gets to the innermost gate, she is completely naked; shorn of all the familiar trappings of identity and power. This myth operates at many levels. Inanna symbolises fertility. Her descent and return are the natural cycles of destruction and regeneration.

At the psycho-spiritual level, the story represents the move away from comfortable everyday reality, the 'stripping’ away of familiar forms of identification, a recognition of the denied shadow side - in an effort to find our real selves.

The rules of the 'above’ do not hold good for the psychological territory 'below’. Inanna’s descent brings her into conflict with her 'dark’ sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld. Inanna realises that this power, too, has its own place. In fact, Ereshkigal is another face of Inanna, who has to be acknowledged, accepted and integrated. Inanna, therefore, expresses a complete and encompassing identity, an amalgam of the human traits.

She finds completeness in an understanding of both these worlds. She has to enter the unknown darkness without her previous “I am” definitions. In that darkness she dies and is reborn.

Another feminine descent journey that we are perhaps more familiar with is that of Persephone, who was snatched and borne off to the Underworld by Hades, Lord of that domain. Demeter, her mother, undertakes a long and arduous journey to rescue her daughter.

Jungian writer Helen Luke analyses the story through the idiom of separation and reintegration. She points out that the descent, and in particular Persephone’s swallowing of the pomegranate seeds which ensures her return to Hades for a part of each year, marks a turning point. She will not regress to dependent daughterhood. She is different, more 'herself’ for having made the descent and experiencing what she did.

In the story of Savitri, when Satyavan is carried off to the Underworld by Yama, his wife Savitri pursues him unrelentingly. Nothing Yama says or does dissuades her. Desperate to make her go back, Yama grants her a boon, that she may have children. She then demands that Satyavan be resurrected so that he can father those promised offspring. In this manner she recovers that 'lost’ part of herself.

Another Jungian teacher and writer, Marie Louise von Franz, in her studies on fairy tales, shows how frequently the journey of the goddess involves descent, a long sleep, or withdrawal from the world.

This is the metaphor of introspection; sometimes still and calm, at other times turbulent. It always involves an unfamiliar place or way of being. In this place, new meanings shape new behaviour.

The knowledge gained on this journey through mythic imagery, when carried into everyday world, equips us to deal with existing issues and conflicts with wisdom, clarity and understanding.

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See also: Spiritual Mythology, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)