Plato's Myth of Er and the Goddesses of Fate

The archetype of fate is personified in the Greek mythological pantheon by three primordial goddesses—known as the Fates, or Moirai—said to be either the daughters of Ananke, the goddess of Necessity, or daughters of Night and Erebus. Sometimes they are even the daughters of Zeus. In fact, the question of their parentage, like that of many other gods and goddesses, remains inconclusive. This is because the psyche is inconclusive. It does not follow the same linear dualistic logic that human life follows. The psyche is infinite. It moves in all directions and is paradoxical—through its imaginal products it shows multiple faces and dimensions at one and the same time. As instinctual matter composed of psyche, the archetypes and their images are likewise intertwined with one another, often tightly conjoined, which results in an almost incestuous family line where everyone is related to everyone else. My area of focus will be on the Fates as they are portrayed in Plato’s myth of Er because, in my opinion, it gives us the most direct information possible about the mythical and religious expressions of the archetype of fate.

In the myth of Er, we are given the image of a huge shaft of light in the middle of the heavens. Inside this light, a massive woman, the goddess of Necessity sitting upon her throne, is holding a giant spindle from which is dangling eight nested whorls all rotating at different speeds and in different directions. The nested whorls create a flat surface upon which are found eight sirens, and, at equal distances along this same surface, the three Fates, each sitting upon a throne of her own. The sirens are all emitting a single note at perfect pitch and are furthermore moving in the direction and at the speed of their respective whorl. Together, they make one full octave, the famous music of the spheres. Using the thread from their mother’s spindle, the three goddesses weave the fate and destinies of reincarnating souls returning to life on earth. They are called Lachesis (lot or portion), Klotho (to twist and spin), and Atropos (un-turned, inflexible). The goddesses also sing as they work, Lachesis about the past, Klotho about the present, and Atropos about the future. The returning souls are given a lot by Lachesis, they then choose an image of a life (human or animal) and, under her supervision, also choose a daimon, or guardian angel, to accompany them for the duration. Next, they go to Klotho where the lot/image is twisted, knotted, ratified. Last, they meet Atropos who makes this choice irreversible by cutting the thread. The souls are then required to pass under the throne of Necessity and through the river of Lethe (forgetting) at which point their memories are wiped, whereas the daimon remembers (and carries) the soul image and so pushes the individual toward living out that pattern. This daimonic urging is what the Romantics named “the call of the heart.”

The thrones on which the goddesses sit suggest the idea of sovereignty. All four goddesses are considered to be Kore figures, unmarried, contained unto/within themselves, untouched, unassailable, located in a liminal sphere outside the space of mundane affairs. The etymology of the word Ananke connects her to ideas of angst, anxiety, and servitude to a higher power as in a yoke, a noose, or a neckband/collar of a slave. In all images, she is portrayed as stern, and immovable. The Fates, too, stand apart and, as triple moon goddesses, they suggest the passage of time through cycles of the moon and the three stages of a woman’s life—maiden, mother, crone. This may also symbolize the way the psyche itself lives life in stages of growth and decay. There is ultimately no doubt about the connection between time as an autonomous force and the fate encountered in life—it is wrapped on all sides by the temporal reality of death. The sirens are interesting. To my knowledge, nowhere else are sirens and the Fates shown working together so explicitly. Sirens are liminal threshold creatures whose song can either bewitch and destroy or elevate and exalt the soul, depending upon the character of the hearer. This adds a wonderful twist to the story, for James Hillman also explains that the way in which we imagine the events of our lives, those of childhood, for example, has a determining effect upon what we get. If we imagine a history of abuse we unwittingly enact and give rise to a victimized consciousness that is hampered by its own (limiting) imaginal thrust. I believe the sirens point to this subtlety of fate: how we see our fate directly influences the end result which can be psychological growth or rancid destruction. This is why the stoic philosophers encouraged the adoption of a practice called amor fati—the love of one’s fate. It would seem that fate is somewhat in our own hands, too, because, crucially, we are allowed to choose our daimon, which means we are allowed to choose how we imagine the life we are living. Our character, which is to say, our level of consciousness, is the deciding factor while our imagination is the key to freedom.

Considered psychologically, the goddesses point to the nature of the objective psyche, which is autonomous, ambivalent, mysterious, unknowable, a force unto itself. It has its own agenda, which is to keep the (cosmic) psychological action moving along. These forces are unmoved by outsiders just as complexes and archetypal forces are unmoved by egoic willpower. This is, in effect, C. G. Jung’s definition of god and points to why he believed that the unconscious together with its contents, the primordial archetypes, are essentially religious factors. Jung wrote that words such as “god” or “daimon” are synonyms for the unconscious (1989, p. 337) explaining further that “we cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are borderline concepts for transcendental contents” (Jung, 1952/1969, p. 330, [CW 11] para. 757). Indeed, it is precisely their evocative and overpowering compulsion that designates archetypal images as emissaries of a religious purpose that keeps life in motion, just as the goddesses of fate periodically reach down and rotate the whorls of the spindle of Necessity, keeping the cosmos (here, an imaginal expression of the objective psyche) in motion. In my view, this is the most significant aspect of fate—that, like the psyche, like god, it is an inescapable sovereign power. The etymology of the word, from the Latin, fata, suggests the idea of a word spoken—in the sense of a decree—by the gods. Thus, a decree of fate, the spoken word of the gods, cannot be avoided, re-turned, or undone. We are tied up in our fate, and this is often felt like a heavy burden since it brings with it inescapable limits and boundaries to which the heroic human ego is loath to submit.

Perhaps the most famous portrayal of the Fates in the arts comes to us through the immortal genius of Shakespeare (2014). The Weird Sisters in Macbeth are taken directly from mythical images of the Fates contained in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland published in 1577. Here, the Fates are portrayed as primeval liminal figures with the ability to prophesy. Holinshed likens them to fairies from a nonhuman netherworld which, in Scottish lore, are considered to be decidedly unwelcome harbingers of doom. Just as nonhuman archetypal forces (the gods) can act upon consciousness and compel it (through overpowering and numinous imaginal compulsions) to do its bidding, the Weird Sisters assail Macbeth with a series of images of personal power that set him upon a bloody path of murder leading to his ultimate demise. This is how the objective psyche works—through fantasy images—and Shakespeare’s portrayal of this psychological process is uncanny. First, he shows the immediate experience of anxiety Macbeth viscerally registers upon encountering the Weird Sisters and their prophecy. Banquo notices: “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear/Things that do sound so fair?” (1.3.51-52). These archetypal figures appearing in a storm are clearly up to no good—Macbeth rightly responds with anxiety. Yet he cannot withstand their power and quickly goes from resistance to the idea of regicide planted in his mind: “that suggestion/whose horrid image doth unfix my hair” (1.3.134-135), to resignation and planning: “if it were done, when ’tis done, then t’were well/it were done quickly” (1.7.1). Here we see fate as an archetypal power depicted and experienced as an inexorable outer force working upon the human mind in unavoidable ways. The Weird Sisters thus symbolize the constraints imposed by an archetypal image when it is constellated in the psyche, i.e., the archetypal definition of fate.

It is noteworthy that Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most consistently performed play. It is obviously very much alive and relevant to contemporary culture. But in 1606 when it was first written, as now, the play’s enduring fascination lies squarely within the province of the Weird Sisters. They are the source of all fascination since they convey the inescapable archetypal reality every person secretly and intuitively grapples with: that my fate and I are intertwined in an irrevocable web of events and outcomes and that there is nothing for it but to embrace this truth and manifest destiny, whatever that may be. There is a sense of intensity and severity about the Weird Sisters and about fate in general which gives us pause. These images show the way the unconscious as “god” is an outside force that is not necessarily well-disposed toward us. We are put on notice that only through a combination of awareness about our own character (conscious versus unconscious status) and a humble sort of subservience to powers beyond our control can we come away somewhat unscathed. For the gods crucially grant us the power of imagination—our daimon, the carrier of our soul-image—and with those penetrating soul-eyes, we can imagine our way into a locus of humility where love and generosity become the highest ideals for a realized character.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Answer to Job (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1952).

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Shakespeare, W. (2014). Proudfoot, R & Thompson, A, & Kastan, D. S. (Eds.). The Arden Shakespeare complete works. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.

An Brief Introduction to Jungian Analytical Psychology

The Unconscious

Jungian psychology is based upon the premise that the psyche—the sum total of human consciousness—is real. The psyche is composed of two main areas: consciousness and the unconscious. Consciousness is a relatively small part of the psyche ruled by the ego. The unconscious, by contrast, is a much larger area of psychic reality characterized by its mysterious quality which always remains, on one level, entirely unknowable. C. G. Jung explained that the unconscious surrounds consciousness on all sides while Jolande Jacobi likened its depth and breadth to an inner cosmos which is as infinite as the outer one. The unconscious is, furthermore, intrinsically creative—it spontaneously generates images. Jung called this imaginal capacity of the psyche its myth-making function, for the unconscious is a creative storyteller, a transpersonal (nonhuman) realm teeming with potential life, as opposed to being only a repository for forgotten and repressed contents, as Freud believed. It is a living field of reality complete with its own autonomy typically manifested in symbolic and metaphorical primordial images that are inherent to its structure.

Structural and Psychodynamic Aspects of the Psyche

The potential for life contained in the unconscious is actualized through certain structural and psychodynamic realities such as complexes and archetypes. Jung defined complexes as clusters of feeling-toned images that congregate around a central (archetypal) nucleus such as “Mother.” A complex is formed when a traumatic event tears asunder two parts of ourselves creating a fringe or splinter identity with its own energetic reality, its own autonomy, and an uncanny ability to absorb the ego into itself causing a state of possession experienced as a temporary alteration of personality. Complexes are therefore typically distinguished by the disturbances and symptoms they cause in the normal functioning of conscious processes. Jacobi connects complexes to the teleological thrust of the psyche by pointing out that complexes must be raised up into consciousness and assimilated so that a redistribution of psychic energy (libido) takes place. In this way, complexes exert a generative influence upon the psyche, using an autonomous existence manifested (through personified form) in dreams to drum up a relational field between ego and the unconscious. Complexes are thus the building blocks of consciousness, carriers of psychic energy, holders of images and their symbolic content.

Fundamentally, complexes are emotional psychic creatures distinguished by their high affectivity, for their meaning is contained in the feeling function which remains opaque in the face of intellectual regard. It is important to mention, however, that for Jung, complexes were not only manifestations of pathological states (as they were for Freud) but also intrinsic to the psychology of healthy individuals. The nodal point of the complex, arising as it does from the realm beyond, is never pathological, but primordial and universal, for complexes arise out of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes belong to the collective unconscious while complexes belong to the personal unconscious, which is where an archetype puts on the clothing of a personal content with specific significance for the individual encountering it.

Jung insisted that archetypes “as such”—which he saw as a priori psychological instincts that condition conscious apprehension—cannot be exactly defined for their nature is utterly mysterious and unknowable. This is because they abide in the collective unconscious which is a suprapersonal realm that lies beyond conscious rational understanding. They can only be known through their effects which manifest in metaphorical and symbolic images observed in dreams, fantasies, visions, mythology, and fairy tales. Archetypes possess a numinous power which, when translated into an imaginal experience in the conscious psyche, exerts a tremendous influence that, in effect, causes certain specific behaviors to arise. Archetypes are structural conditioning factors, autonomous, unalterable, and fundamental to the psyche. They are dynamic, alive, numinous, fascinating, powerful, mysterious, and, above all, as Jung insists, ambivalent. Archetypes take recognizable form only when they come into contact with the personal unconscious and its contents at which point they manifest in symbols. Classic Jungian complexes and archetypes defined as structural elements of the psyche are called Ego, Persona, Shadow, Anima/Animus, and the Self.

Phenomenal and Experiential Aspects of the Psyche

Jung has said that archetypes are akin to actionable psychic organizations which means that they have a role to play in the creation of consciousness. This has to do with what Jung has called the teleological aspect of the psyche—its inherent need to move toward a goal, which is the synthesis of conscious and unconscious realms into a state of equilibrium where the centering unit of consciousness, the ego, is grounded in and informed by the more profound centering unit of the total psyche—the archetype of the Self. To achieve this wholesome state of consciousness, which is what Jung called individuation, the objective psyche spontaneously generates symbolic images in order to communicate its intentions and needs to the conscious sphere. For life to be complete, external life must correspond with the imaginal and metaphorical version of it taking place on a symbolic level in the psyche. A sort of dialectic process therefore unfolds between conscious and unconscious spheres of psychic reality with symbols acting as the connecting bridge. Symbols shuttle the unknowns of the deep objective psyche into the realm of consciousness using images. Jungian images are not restricted to visual styles but encompass any spontaneous emanation from the deep psyche which can take the form of thoughts, ideas, emotions and affects, visions, sudden insights and inspirations, creative output of any kind, dreams, and rituals, to name a few. By interacting with these symbolic images through methods (reintroduced by Jung) such as active imagination, dreamwork, and ritual, the conscious ego is opened up to a broader level of consciousness as more and more unconscious knowledge comes up into the light of day, as it were, and becomes integrated into conscious awareness. This is what is meant by the idea of wholeness.

These dynamic psychological phenomena are experienced in personal life through the advent of our creative and emotional lives. It is as if we become aware of other persons, emotional beings, exerting an autonomous influence over us in the form of strange, inexplicable moods, sudden flashes of rage or sadness, melancholic ideas about the past or future, and creative abilities such as fluency with writing or painting or dance. But perhaps the most ubiquitous experience of the symbolic output of the psyche takes place each night when we enter the world of dreams. Dreams and their counterparts, myths, fairy tales, and poetry are essentially the symbolic language of the psyche writ large. It is through meaningful dialogue with this language and its speakers that we enlarge and expand the otherwise limited realm of consciousness. The images enrich our lives with meaning, endowing us with secret knowledge from beyond the limited human realm, which brings with it the numinous power of renewal, regeneration, and the fecundity inherent in transpersonal nature.

The Relationship Between Instinct and Spirit

In his investigations into the nature of archetypal phenomena, Jung needed to distinguish between instinctual behavioral patterns such as those we share with animals, and psychological patterns that appear to be only psychic. To this end he devised a model that put the total psyche, conscious and unconscious, on a scale with two opposite poles—on one end there is the purely physiological realm of instinct, on the other, the purely psychic, or spiritual, realm of archetypes. Consciousness can slide between these two extremes, taking on the qualities of one or the other. When consciousness has merged with the purely instinctual pole—the pole which Jung designates with the color infrared—an individual can be overcome by passions of the body such as overeating or pathological sexual drives. In the other extreme, when consciousness has merged with the purely spiritual (archetypal) pole—designated by the color ultraviolet—an individual may be persuaded that they are the lord savior or remain possessed by some other fanatical form of spiritual conviction. Jung believed that while spirit and instinct are polar opposites, they nevertheless exist together in a symbiotic and fruitful form of correspondence which, through tension producing dynamics in the psyche, generate the psychic energy needed for life, a dynamic Jung identified as the transcendent function. Spirit and instinct are thus contaminated with one another and are correlates that, in a sense, connect psyche with matter. Jacobi helpfully compares an archetype to the psychic aspect of brain structure and explains that instinct determines and regulates biological functioning while archetype determines and regulates psychological functioning. At either extreme end of the spectrum, there is the psychoid realm, which is a transpersonal dimension beyond the matter/psyche duality where archetypes as spiritual, nonorganic entities connect with physiological instincts and essentially become the same thing, thereby enacting the well-known alchemical image of an uroboros.

Ever Deeper Core of Meaning

Myths . . . are accessible collective narratives containing densely coded symbols and archetypes that can awaken stage-specific dynamic interplay between instinct and archetype.

—Maren T. Hansen, An evaluation case study of a myth class to stimulate identity development for early adolescents

     C. G. Jung taught that images are spontaneous irruptions from the deep psyche that can manifest in a variety of forms which are not limited only to visual images but can also appear as emotions, thoughts, fantasies, and daydreams. These psychic products are furthermore symbolic, meaning they contain hidden knowledge which the psyche is attempting to convey to the conscious sphere, whether this conscious sphere is that of an individual's or that of an entire society. In the context of “densely coded” symbolic images being conveyed to an entire society, the imaginal language of films, books, poems, fairy tales, myths, and a variety of visual and performing art forms such as music, dance, and religious ritual allow us to sound the depths of the psyche in order to understand the messages it has for us. 

     What we have learned during our course is that these symbolic images are imaginal stand-ins for the immense variety of psychological experiences we encounter during the span of one lifetime. Each image—whether it’s an overwhelming irruption of sorrow, a nasty moment of jealousy, or a drawn picture of a caged bird—is a symbol which represents an inner psychological event. Usually, the images that are spontaneously produced and the images we are drawn to at any given moment are reflective of the current cycle of psychological growth and development while throughout the vast pantheon of imaginal material produced by the human psyche we find images and narratives that tell the story of different stages of psychological experience. These are then grouped into types of myth and types of books and types of art, all of which reflect certain psychological and archetypal characteristics and processes. 

     All of us are living our lives from within the inner parameters of these different psychological cycles so that the stories in myths and fairytales, and their counterparts found in the art world and especially in the world of films, can help us to identify which stage we are in. These stage-specific narratives thus contain a great deal of information for how best to navigate that particular section of the psychological road. The overall goal, at least according to countless myths and fairytales, and according to depth psychology, is individuation, which is the process whereby the sphere of consciousness and the much larger and more powerful sphere of the unconscious form a symbiotic harmony, what has been termed the Ego/Self axis. This harmony is only achieved at a great price, namely, the price of enduring great psychological disharmony and suffering, for it is the continual defeat of the ego in the face of the much larger and transpersonal powers of the unconscious that slowly polishes the soul into a vibrant jewel. The quest for individuation and the seemingly never-ending obstacles faced on this quest are often symbolized in the myth of the hero’s journey, most notably articulated by mythologist Joseph Campbell. 

     My vocation—the calling of my soul—is to become a theoretical archetypal psychologist and a scholar. For me, the application of learned material to my own psychological life for the purpose of psychic research and to gain an ever deeper knowledge of the intricate and mysterious workings of the psyche is of paramount importance. In this sense, knowing the way myths and fairytales and films identify inner dynamics and show them to us through the use of symbolic images is of immense value. In this course, I have learned that images are not only symbolic but that they carry a moving, dynamic core of meaning which, when deciphered, explodes open our usual narrow ego perspectives.

And so, onward!

The Spiral Stairwell

     I think it’s a fundamental characteristic in the study of archetypal psychology that can never be repeated enough, an aspect that is so easy to forget or misunderstand, and that is that mythical images are the psyche, or as Jung succinctly put it, “image is psyche” (Jung, 1929/1967, p. 54, CW13 para. 75). This means that an image of a god or goddess, together with any and all imaginal accouterments they carry or are adorned by as well as the events and dramas of their lives are all psyche. These images are not some separate reality that we study from a position outside of psyche. Both the images and our interactions with them (whether these interactions are scholarly, mythopoetic, ritualistic, or actively imaginal) are psyche. So when we study the gods and goddesses, as in this course, for example, those from the Greek pantheon, we are studying psyche itself. The gods and goddesses and the dramatic narratives of their lives thus portray the life of the psyche—its way of living (Rossi, 2019). 

     As we know from our studies thus far, the psyche is composed of conscious and unconscious spheres, the latter being the larger and more powerful of the two. Indeed, Jung thought that the conscious sphere is surrounded on all sides by the unconscious in the same way that a lit candle in a dark room is surrounded on all sides by impenetrable darkness. Yet this mysterious and humongous surrounding space is dynamic and alive. In its fathomless depths, amorphous numinous entities—psychological energy patterns—roam and rule. These archetypes carry specific programs which affect the way we live our lives since they can powerfully influence our consciousness. Intrinsically unknowable, the archetypes appear through symbolic images in myths, dreams, and fantasies so that a personified and recognizable narrative alerts us to the hidden workings of the deep psyche. The gods and goddesses thus exhibit these psychological systems at work in the collective unconscious and show us how they are actively influencing our day to day lives. If we can understand the patterns of behavior that reflect these inner psychic workings, we can better comprehend the deeper and often hidden significance of life events, rites of passage, big ideas such as love and hate, massive social affairs like war and peace, and, of course, the deepest mysteries of the human soul. 

     In this course, I have learned that the movements of goddesses and gods and the movements of the psyche are one and the same thing so that when I study these divinities I am in effect studying myself. Not myself in a personal sense but rather the self in me which is psyche—the parts of “me” that are rooted in and informed by broader spheres of consciousness, which are, in fact, all of me since it has been made abundantly clear by almost all mystical wisdom traditions that the experience of a separate self is just a trick of the mind. In this labyrinthine way, the study of archetypal divinities becomes a moving spiral stairwell (heading in both directions simultaneously) which leads to self-knowledge. 

     Since my vocation involves one day becoming an archetypal psychologist and scholar, this course has been vitally essential. Our in-depth study of the works of archetypal psychologists such as Ginette Paris, Christine Downing, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, Patricia Berry, James Hillman, and others has taught me how to look deeply into the often ambivalent and contradictory nature of archetypal images, particularly as they are embodied in the characters from Greek mythology. I’ve learned that archetypal spaces and locations are also “persons" and that all mythical narratives can best be understood through the use of metaphor and simile. Above all else, for me, there is tremendous value in understanding the workings of the psyche so that I can touch the deeper dimensions of life, particularly its divine nature—which is to say, the coursework this term has brought me closer to an understanding of what it means to face the gods. 

Earth-Born Kore

If we think of the psyche as an internal polis, Athene can be seen as the force which seeks to civilize the contents. Despite her status as Parthenos goddess, she is uniquely qualified to enact this civilizing potential through her relational aspects which differ from other virgin goddesses—Athene is the protectress of ordered relationship. Within herself, she contains and holds, not only herself but the potential for constraint and mastery of the strictly held and strategic moment. Like Kore, Athene shares space with Necessity for all three are self-contained in their inherent psychological directness. All three goddess images dwell within themselves, and are, on one level, entirely whole and implacable. Athene’s self-contained and armored wisdom is crafty with an ability to weave various strands and impulses into “a whole fabric” just “as her own person is a combination of Reason and Necessity” (Hillman, 2016, p. 66). She uses strategy, craftiness, and intelligence to redirect (through persuasive rhetoric) the chaos and irrationality of the psyche into a recognizable, satisfying, and cohesive integration where each piece has its clearly defined and necessary place. 

And yet Athene cannot stand goatish Dionysus, cannot abide sensual Aphrodite, is in constant warfare with Poseidon and his inherent depth, and smothers the fires of Ares with her measured tempo. Her urge toward order and civilized containment, her bridling of the wild horse, can be seen as its own shadow since it tends to circumnavigate the intrinsic and necessary wilderness of psychic regions where the necessity of chaos gives birth to new and unruly life. There is also Jane Ellen Harrison’s rather convincing critique about Athene’s negation of the mother as expressed in the manner of her birth which Harrison calls “a desperate theological expedient to rid an earth-born Kore of her matriarchal conditions” (Harrison, 1991, P. 302). 

Hillman, J. (2016). Mythic figures. The uniform edition of the writings of James Hillman, Vol. 6. Putnam, CT: Spring. 

Harrison, J. E. (1991). Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.