Paper
Oedipus Myth: The Story of Man’s Life from Fertilization to Birth?
- Authors:
- Bourdeaux Josette; Kwiatkowski Fabrice
- Abstract
- Since Freud, it has become quite usual to utilize ancient Greek myths to name or to illustrate modern psychological patterns. This attitude seemed justified both by Sigmund Freud with what he called “archaic remnants” and by Gustav Jung with his “collective unconscious”, the substrate of “archetypes”. Jung considered these latter as the “innate universal psychic dispositions”. But a different reading of the myths enables to reveal a completely new meaning which appears very relevant in the lighting of actual scientific knowledge. The means to develop this reading is based on the literal translation of proper names of heroes and places. For instance, this approach can successfully be used for one of the most popularized myths: Oedipus. Literally, it narrates the strange story of Oedipus (“Swollen Foot”), after his father Laius, “owner of a herd”, had abandoned him in “a place devoted to feeding” (mount Cithaeron), which is a close phonetic anagram in Greek of uterus (hystera), in brief: a matrix. After Oedipus had grown up, he accidentally met his father in a narrow gorge between Delphi and a place qualified as “secret, furry” (Daulis). Oedipus’ father and his servant, a “serial killer” (Polyphontes) tried to break through and the chariot rolled over our heroe’s foot. Oedipus, angry, refused to let them pass and a fight ensued: he killed the servant, and his father died as his chariot overturned on him. Later, Oedipus arrived at a pass on mount Phycion (i.e. a pass related to female nature: the “cervix”) where he had to confront something that could strangle him (Sphinx = sphincter). She, the Sphynge, had a woman’s face, a lion’s body but with breasts and a snake tail. She had already devoured the “blood” of Jocasta (Heamon, Jocasta’s nephew’s name, means bleeding). As Oedipus answered her enigma, she jumped from the top of the mountain and died below. Narrated as so, this story relates the conception, indicated by the cessation of menses, probably intercourse during pregnancy and finally birth when the placenta and ombilical cord (the snake tail) become useless. If this reading is relevant, it suggests that the ancient Greeks were aware of the psychological impact of foetal life before birth on the development of the human psyche and destiny. This possibility is in accordance with Stanislas Grof’s approach and other recent epidemiological and/or biological research on the impact of prenatal stress on the embryo’s development and future behaviour. To our mind, several other myths carry similar insights into the psychology of the ancient Greeks. According to Robert Graves, it can be thought that to explore the human psyche, the ancient Greeks used hallucinogenic plants and in particular mushrooms just as Stanislas Grof did but using LSD at the beginning of his investigations.
- Keywords
- Oedipus; Mythology; Prenatal Life; Birth Trauma; Psychotropic
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