2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
“As a dream on an individual level, so a myth on a phylogenetic,
is a splinter of a dead psychic life”. (O. Rank)
On September 23, 1939, boys selling newspapers filled the busy streets of London with shouts: "The Hempstead dream interpreter is dead!"
We will never know how Freud himself would react to such a summing up of the results of his entire life. The great psychologist, who considered the dream the most important way to understand the content of the unconscious, and called it the royal road, could take it for granted. Z. Freud compared psychoanalysis with the archeology of consciousness. Archeology was a hobby for him that he did not give up until the end of his life. It is known that Freud showed a particular interest in antiquity. When he was 75 years old, excavations began in Crete, which he became extremely interested in and called "the most exciting event", extremely regretting that he could not, due to his age, see their results. Some of his works are reminiscent of archaeological excavations, in which the author bit by bit collects the fragments of the person's past, restoring the whole picture, guessing about the missing fragments. It is the archeology of consciousness that we intend to do. We have to walk along the road that Freud called the royal road, although at times it narrows to the size of a barely noticeable path in order to penetrate the fantasies of an entire people that have long disappeared. But for this we need the collective dream of this people, that is, a myth. A myth is governed by the same mental mechanisms as a dream, like a dream, it is a product of a fantasy, however, of a whole group of people.
Even the first psychoanalysts proved that the theory of the fulfillment of desires, used in the interpretation of dreams, can be transferred to myth. Besides Z. Freud himself, the works of K. Abraham, O. Rank and other analysts who wrote about it are known. In addition, many archaic cultures believe that the main source of the creation of myths is the dreams of priests and shamans. Therefore, we easily accept the statement that a myth is the dream of an entire people.
But there are still some differences. A myth, unlike a dream, is designed principally to be remembered and passed on from generation to generation. While the dream is not meant to be memorized, and only the dreamer's effort keeps him conscious. The myth is rather similar to daydreams, which some subjects so easily indulge in.
To make such statements not look like speculation, we must test them in practice, as the science of psychoanalysis requires. For this we need a specific myth. The myth that we intend to explore was born several millennia ago, by a people who have sunk into the abyss of centuries. But their desires and fantasies remained in us, and we can analyze them as a dream is analyzed.
Moreover, our dream. The dream of everyone who reads this article or hears the report. When interpreting a myth, we must be prepared for the fact that, as in interpreting a dream, we will encounter the work of censorship. Consequently, the external form of the myth, that is, its formal plot, may not at all reflect its internal, deep content. Like a dream, a myth needs interpretation. Sometimes it resembles a crime investigation. The analogy is by no means accidental, especially in this case.
Let's get started. Usually, the first step in analyzing a dream is to try to remember it. Most often, upon awakening, we remember some scraps that are not always possible to combine with each other in order to get a complete picture. The same is true for attempting to interpret the myth. What does each of us remember from the content of the myth telling about the Minotaur, Ariadne and the hero Theseus?
Most likely, a more or less educated person heard about the ancient Greek story, according to which a hero named Theseus, with the help of his girlfriend Ariadne, and a magic ball of threads entered a terrible labyrinth, killed a monster named Minotaur and saved the inhabitants of the city of Athens. Perhaps this is where the knowledge of the average average intellectual ends. Some people remember that the action took place on the island of Crete. We can say that these are scraps of a dream that each of us remembers. This is the first step in the analysis of a collective dream, which we call a myth, but when the dream is narrated, details often come up.
Adhering to my plan, and acting as the narrator of the dream, I must retell the myth itself with some details, which, apparently, not accidentally, did not linger in our consciousness, although they are its most important part. It is known that during the work of a dream, the details that are pushed out to the periphery of the dream are often the most important. This is the so-called work of censorship, when affect shifts from an important circumstance to an insignificant one, and, as Freud says, a complete revaluation of values occurs. Let's see if this is true of the myth. Although the situation with a myth is much more complicated than with a dream. After all, the myth has existed for centuries and even millennia. It has been retold a great many times. And it is not known when the displacement occurred. During the creation of the myth or much later, when moral values changed. Moreover, the myth was influenced by other cultures. But the difficulty does not change our determination, and we will move on.
So, the second stage: the story of the myth
According to the myth, Minos, the king of Crete, offended Poseidon by not sacrificing a beautiful bull to him, although he had promised. Driven by a sense of revenge, Poseidon arranged for Minos' wife, Pasiphae, to fall in love and have sexual intercourse with a sacrificial bull, which some said was none other than Poseidon himself. From this criminal connection, a son was born, half-man, half-bull, the Minotaur. Minos decided to imprison this monster in a dungeon, hiding the shame from human eyes far away. To do this, he turned to the craftsman Daedalus, who built a labyrinth. A special structure from which it was impossible to get out.
His first victim was the Minotaur. In Athens, by that time the son of Minos, Androgeus, perishes, and as punishment Minos demands that once every nine years, the inhabitants of Athens, by lot, give their children to the Minotaur to be eaten - seven young men and seven girls. This happened twice.
But for the third time Theseus appeared in Athens. Deciding to save the inhabitants of Athens, he himself volunteered to take the place of one of those who were to be sacrificed. Then he replaced the two girls with two feminine youths who nevertheless had great courage and intelligence. He ordered them to take baths, avoid sunburn, and imitate the gait and mannerisms of women. Sailing away, Theseus raised the black sails on the ship, to a sign of mourning, making a promise to his father, Aegeus, that when he killed the Minotaur, on his return he would change the color of the sails to white so that victory could be seen from afar. When the ships sailed, there was a custom to make a sacrifice to Apollo, but For some reason Theseus forgot to do this, and the ensuing storm, which was God's revenge, forced him to perform this rite in Delphi, where he hid from the hurricane. On the ship that sailed to Crete, there was also Minos himself, who oversaw the selection of victims. On the ship, a dispute is played out between Minos and Theseus over the girl. In which both are trying to demonstrate their divine origin. Minos proves that he is the son of Zeus, while Theseus claimed to be the son of Poseidon.(The fact is that, according to the myth of the birth of Theseus, Ephru, Theseus' mother, visited Poseidon on their wedding night, while a drunken Aegeus slept.) To prove his origin, Theseus dives to the bottom of the sea and takes out a crown and a precious ring. When they arrived in Crete, Minos' daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, who, in exchange for a promise to marry her and take her to Athens, agrees to help Theseus kill her half-brother. Ariadne had at her disposal a ball of thread that Daedalus gave her before leaving Crete.
If you tie this ball of thread to the door lintel and throw it in front of you, it will begin to unwind and lead, decreasing, to a sleeping monster, which should have been killed, sacrificing Poseidon. That same night, Theseus killed the monster. And two young men, who were disguised as girls, killed the guards of the women's quarters, freed the captives, rushed into the bay, boarded a ship and sailed into the sea. A few days later, the fugitives dropped anchor on the island of Dia. Theseus left the sleeping Ariadne on it, and he swam away. Nobody knows why. According to one version, he did not want the troubles associated with the appearance of Ariadne in Athens, and according to another version, he simply forgot her. Theseus' memory fails for the third time when he returns to Athens, and he forgets to change sails. As a result, Aegeus, watching from the top of the acropolis for the approaching ships, decided that the expedition ended in disaster, and threw himself into the sea, committing suicide.
Already at the stage of a more detailed retelling of the myth, some details are revealed that expose our hero in a not at all heroic light. This is not an accident, but the work of displacement, a technique by which very important details are pushed aside to the periphery of the plot. Therefore, we only remember the details that fit into the picture of Theseus as a hero. The incomprehensible amnesia that possessed the hero, makes him, upon sailing, challenge Apollo, but then fortunately there were no sacrifices, and only because the sacrifices were made in the temple. The second attack of amnesia forced Theseus to leave his beloved woman on a deserted island, not fulfilling his promise to marry, and endangering her life itself. And the third episode of amnesia leads to the death of Aegeus, his earthly father.
But let's continue our analogies between myth and dream and turn our attention to a certain so-called remnant of the day, which Freud wrote about when analyzing dreams. This is the third stage in dream interpretation. The daytime balance is understood as some real events that triggered the dream and are reflected in the content of the dream. In this case, real events that took place in Crete in an era close to the creation of myth can serve as an analogy for the day's balance. Archaeological excavations that are still being carried out on the southernmost Greek island - Crete, on which the most ancient civilization in Europe - the Minoan civilization - was located, can tell us about these events. Excavations are taking place in the palace of Knossos, which is believed to have been owned by Minos, king of Crete, and was destroyed around 1900 BC. It should be said right away that no traces of the labyrinth were found, but the palace itself is a whole system of intricate passages. This allows some researchers to believe that this was the reason for the creation of the myth of the labyrinth. On the walls of the palace, frescoes were found depicting some kind of ritual games of young men, consisting in the dangerous procedure of jumping over a bull. And also found coins of that time with the image of a labyrinth in the form of a spiral. Perhaps this is all daylight, which barely shines through the darkness of millennia.
But we are fantasy hunters, not archaeologists, and therefore we will leave the world of material evidence and enter the world of human fantasy.
The method of free association is used to study the dream. We also use it to get a more complete picture. This is the fourth stage in the interpretation of a dream. But when analyzing a dream, the dreamer's associations are used, but in the absence of such, we will have to use the associations of all mankind, which are associated with myth. That is, we will select from the cultural material available to us some information that could be useful in analyzing the myth.
The first association. According to the Greek myth, many years after these events, Theseus ends up on the island of Skyros, where he owned a piece of land. But the king Lycomedes who owned the island, not wanting to share, tricked him to the cliff, allegedly wanting to show Theseus his possession from a height. From there he pushed him into the abyss. Theseus dies. The second association: according to Greek mythology, Zeus seduced Europe by appearing before her in the form of a bull. The event, according to legend, also took place on the island of Crete. The third association. In numerous cultures of both Europe and Asia, the bull is the embodiment of God or his attribute. The fourth association. The brazen bull of the tyrant Falaris (571-555 BC) The tyrant ruled the Greek colony in Sicily. He made a bull of copper, under which a fire was made, and when it got hot, a victim of political repression was placed in a special hole in the side of the bull. The screams of the victim turned into the roar of a bull, delighting the tyrant's ears. Some researchers associate this bull with the sacrifice of children in Carthage. Which, according to some reports, were also thrown into the belly of a red-hot bull. Fifth Association. The structure itself, called the "labyrinth", in which the Minotaur was located. Preserved images of the ancient labyrinth, in particular on antique coins. This is not at all a structure with intricate moves. It has one entrance, which is also an exit. It is impossible to get lost in it. You just can't get out of it. But not at all because of the complex geometry. In the surviving images, the labyrinth is a spiral. It is a symbol. Like any symbol, it is difficult to read and has many meanings. But its one meaning is extremely important for us, especially since it is the main one. It is a symbol of the Earth, mother, female reproductive tract, uterus. It was in the center of this spiral that the minotaur was located. The thread of Ariadne in this case symbolizes the umbilical cord. Now, when we have at our disposal not only the content of the dream (myth), but also the association, then armed with deductive logic and knowledge of the methods of interpreting dreams that psychoanalysis has developed, let's subject the myth to a more thorough analysis and see who here is the victim, and who is the villain. This is the fifth stage. According to legend, Pasiphia is seduced by a white bull, which was Poseidon himself. That it was God himself is confirmed by the associations. Thus, the Minotaur, is the son of the criminal connection not of the bull and Pasiphia, but of Poseidon himself with Pasiphia. Now let's remember about the dispute on the ship between Theseus and Minos. Theseus assures, and brings material evidence that he is the son of Poseidon. Here we see the second technique used by dream and myth in the work of censorship, which is called condensation. Thickening is a special technique when the same image can be symbolized, or, if you like, hidden behind different characters in a dream. Condensation demonstrates especially clearly the difference between the explicit and latent content of a dream. Theseus's father appears in the images of the earthly father, Aegeus, and the god Poseidon at the same time. Poseidon is the father of both Theseus and the Minotaur. Therefore, and this is the most important moment of our research - Theseus and the Minotaur are brothers. At this point, the story, which began as a song of praise to the hero, suddenly turns into an accusatory speech by the prosecutor. In it, Theseus is accused of murdering his brother.
Let's move on. The labyrinth symbolizes the maternal genital tract into which the hero enters. The labyrinth is one of the main archaic symbols of the mother's womb, which was widespread and it is enough to turn to special literature to be convinced of this. This action is difficult to qualify other than incest. It seems that the list of theseus' heroic deeds is growing. And now about the amnesia of Theseus. The first episode - Theseus forgets to make a sacrifice to Apollo when sailing. This is Theseus' first attempt to challenge the supreme power. It ended unsuccessfully. God is all the same. The second episode concerns Ariadne, whom Theseus forgot on the island.
Who does Ariadne represent?
There is almost no information about her. Daughter of Minos, and sister of Monotaur. But if she is the sister of the Minotaur, and the Minotaur himself, as has already been proven, is a brother of Theseus, then it becomes clear that Ariadne is the same sister of Theseus, like the Minotaur. Then, at the symbolic level, its proximity to the umbilical cord leading to the mother's womb is understandable. The forgetfulness of Theseus, who left her on the island and prevented him from marrying her, also becomes understandable. He couldn't marry his sister. Leaving a man on a deserted island is a compromise between the desire to kill him and keep him alive. Apparently, Ariadne survived only because the rivalry between two children of different sex is softened by sexual attraction.
And the third episode with amnesia, the results of which are becoming more tragic, concerns the death of Aegeus, his father. Theseus forgets to change sails. Aegeus throws himself into the sea.
So, the list of Theseus' exploits in the Cretan epic can be completed: the murder of a brother, incest with his mother, driving his father to suicide, incest with his sister, removing her from her mother, and possibly an attempt to murder her.
We see that when analyzing the myth, its religious and ethical content, which is the first, most superficial layer, representing Theseus as a hero, is removed. This is what Abraham says, emphasizing that in the depths of the myth there is a deeper layer containing children's primitive fantasies and desires of the people. Sometimes, according to Abraham, behind this layer lies another, deeper, and sometimes a third, which consists of the rudiments of childhood desires. He's a layer of psychosis.
In this myth, there are still some nuances that leave a feeling of some artificiality in the interpretation. They are associated with the hero's incest with his mother. There is a feeling that the desire for union with the mother is not as sexually expressed as, for example, shown in the drama of Sophocles. To clarify this issue, we can refer to the French psychoanalyst Chaussgett-Smirgel, who writes the following: “While agreeing with Ferenczi's opinion, I believe that incestuous desire is based on the desire to return to the womb. Thus, the predecessor of the fully developed classical Oedipus complex is, according to my assumptions, an innate and immediate desire to remove from its path all the obstacles that prevent the return to the intrauterine state. Such barriers are the father, his penis, unborn children.
The reality is that after birth, the baby has no way to return to the mother's body. I called the desire to destroy all obstacles on the way to returning to the mother's body an archaic form of the Oedipus complex.…. patients with borderline organization are most susceptible to apocalyptic fantasies, the goal of which is to transform Mother Earth into a "wasteland" (from a poem by TS Eliot). The goal is to free the mother's body from its contents in order to return it to its original smoothness and take its place in it, which previously belonged to it.”
Thus, the myth of Theseus most likely expresses a kind of archaic form of the Oedipus complex, in which the hero penetrates into the mother's womb, and for this purpose gradually eliminates rivals. The brother is the first to be eliminated. Interestingly, in an inverted form, this is confirmed by the content of the myth itself - the Minotaur was supposed to absorb exactly the children of the inhabitants of Athens. And also the historical data, which we took as associations - namely, children were sacrificed in Carthage. Then the hero seduces and removes his sister from the mother. Her very life is in danger. Finally, the father is eliminated. His suicide is actually a disguised murder. The fact that the Greeks did not realize, but somehow felt the direct guilt of Theseus in the death of his father, is confirmed by another myth about Theseus, where he dies exactly the same death as his father. The Greeks attributed only retribution to fate. That is, conscience, from an analytical point of view.
There are some more complicating elements in the myth. We mean the fact that Theseus had to kill the Minotaur and thus sacrifice him to Poseidon, that is, his father. And also an interesting coincidence. Crete is the island where Zeus hid from Chronos, who ate his children. But this is the same story, or something else, there is no way to research this topic due to the limitation of the size of the article.
In conclusion, I would like to ask everyone who has read the article: Is Theseus a hero or a criminal? According to the myth, he is a hero. Then the next question is natural: who is a hero? Probably, at this point it would be necessary to pause so that everyone can give their own definition. For me personally, the definition that O. Rank gives to the hero is close. This is a person who fulfills universal human desires through superhuman deeds.
REFERENCES
1. K. Abraham. Dream and myth. In the book. “Between Oedipus and Osiris. Formation of the psychoanalytic concept of myth”. Initiative. Lviv. Ed. "Perfection". M. 1998
2. O. Rank, G. Zachs “Psychoanalytic study of myths and fairy tales”. In the same place.
3. Z. Freud. "Interpretation of dreams". Kiev. "Health". 1991 year
4. J. Chaussget-Smirgel. Sadomasochism in Perversion: Some Reflections on the Destruction of Reality. "Journal of Practical Psychology and Psychoanalysis". 2004 # 4.
