Edward F. Edinger: Redemption of the Captive Soul.
Living Psyche: A Jungian Analysis in Pictures Psychotherapy
The Awakening in the Whore House
Description: (from a dream) I descend to the basement of a whore house run by a brutal man.
I discover a bruised and battered young woman who nevertheless had a glowing beauty.
I kiss her and awaken her.
I am overcome momentarily with a sense of compassion for her, for me, for the pathos of the human condition.
The tough owner stands at the top of the staircase.
Comment: This image expresses the basic idea of analysis-descent into the unconscious to redeem the captive soul.
There are many examples-the fairy tale of “Sleeping Beauty,” Orpheus and Eurydice and, most profound of all, the Gnostic myth of Sophia caught in the dark embrace of matter. [48]
In the Pistis Sophia we read that Sophia looked down from her world of light onto the dark world and saw light in it.
She thought it to be part of the higher heavenly light but actually it came from the “Self-willed,” the rebellious one.
So she was seduced
“and came into the regions of the chaos and drew nigh to that lion-faced light-power to devour it.
But all the material emanations of Self-willed surrounded her, and the great lion-faced light-power devoured all the light-powers in Sophia . . . and her matter was thrust into chaos. . . .”
And Pistis Sophia cried out most exceedingly, she cried to the Light of Lights which she had seen from the beginning. . . . “Save me, O Light, for evil thoughts have entered into me.” [49] ~Edward F. Edinger, The Living Psyche, Page 91.
