Orpheus & Eurydice: Journeys Through the Underworld
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice suggests that men and women respond differently to underworld experience. Typically, in the myths, male heroes enter the underworld deliberately for the sake of some daylight world project. They set out to obtain some precious knowledge, to rescue someone, to demonstrate their courage, or to be transformed. Females are more often abducted into the underworld—but, once there, they discover that it is where they belong. For a time at least, it is their real world. This program seeks to understand the soul meaning of both modes of response and compares their relevance to our own experiences of desolation and loss.
Christine Downing, PhD is a Professor of Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she regularly teaches in most of the programs. She was the first woman president of the American Academy of Religion, taught for almost twenty years in the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, was a member of the Core Faculty at the San Diego campus of the California School of Professional Psychology, and served as a faculty member of the Religion Department at Douglass College of Rutgers University. She has taught at the Jung Institute in Zürich and lectures frequently to Jungian groups both here and abroad and at American and European universities. She is the author of numerous books, including The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine, Journey Through Menopause: A Personal Rite of Passage, Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, Women's Mysteries: Toward a Poetics of Gender, Gods In Our Midst—Mythological Images of the Masculine: A Woman's View, and The Long Journey Home: Re-visioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time.