THIS TEXT brings into written form for the first time Edward F. Edinger’s discussion of the psychological meanings to be found in Greek mythology, epic, drama, and religious practice. Presented in the 1970s as two series of lectures, one in New York City and one in California, the material shows the author mining the ore of Greek culture for the gold of psychological insight useful to modern individuals.
In the almost twenty years since the lectures were presented, Dr. Edinger, a noted psychiatrist and Jungian analyst, has brought forth books on the psychological dimensions of medieval alchemy, the Old and New Testaments, Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Goethe’s Faust, and he has spoken and written in explication of a number of C. G. Jung’s later works. Throughout his writings, as in these lectures, he expresses his indebtedness to the seminal thinking of Jung, and carries Jung’s ideas into fresh areas of thought and application.
Both Jung and Edinger have sought new understanding of the deep layers of the human psyche by burrowing into wide-ranging cultural contexts. This burrowing, motivated by the search for psychological insight rather than for scholarly learning in any specific cultural field, has been described by Edinger as “poaching”: “We [Jungian psychologists] are constantly venturing into scholarly realms of history and anthropology and mythology—all the arts—tracking our prey . . . the psyche.”1 Here, the territory broached belongs more conventionally to the classicist, yet in the hands of this expert tracker yields bountiful psychological material.
Readers may find that the broad scope of Edinger’s survey leaves them wishing for more material, a fuller development, and more discussion of the basic texts. Our hope in bringing the lectures to a wider audience is that readers may be led into their own exploration and imaginative musing on the meanings in the old stories, seeking their own connections to them.
The text of this book is a recasting of the original lectures and of an essay, “The Tragic Hero: An Image of Individuation,” which originally appeared in the journal Parabola.2 The Greek myths have come down to us in widely variant forms; the versions used here are for the most part those to be found in Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths.
I want to thank Thornton Ladd, whose idea started this project, and who has been a creative collaborator from first to last—the book is really a joint venture. The volume owes much as well to my husband, David Wesley, who acted as my editorial mentor and assisted generously in the editorial work. I am also grateful to George Elder, who brought the material of the New York lectures to my attention and continued with encouragement and helpful editorial advice. Further thanks are due Professor Douglas Domingo-Forasté of the California State University, Long Beach, who provided many scholarly suggestions, and to David O’Neal of Shambhala Publications. Finally, I thank Lyn La Cava, whose transcript of the original lectures sponsored by the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco preserved the material through all these years and provided the basis for this text.
Deborah A. Wesley