ABSTRACT
The role of katabasis, or ‘descent’ in the development of the spiritual psyche, is a topic that has been relatively unexplored in hagiographic literature, particularly in the stories of the Byzantine Greek Orthodox matericon, or ‘mothers of the church’ in the Middle East. These female saints have, in one way or another, escaped patriarchy, embarking on journeys of ascension toward spirituality but through the routes of descending into various circumstances of self-destitution. A post-Jungian revisiting of this literature will show how, in addition to eliding a patriarchic social system, female saints such as Barbara, Tala, Marina, and Anna-Simon have achieved spiritual development, or individuation, by seeking refuge in maternal landscapes; they fled to camouflaging natural environments, katabatic womb-like abysses such as dark settings, cavernous spaces, and forests, which were sites of an inner coniunctio. Some post-Jungian studies may be helpful in approaching this subject, especially those that have looked into topics such as the heroine (Coline Covington and Maureen Murdock), women in war (Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson), pregnant darkness (Shepherd Bliss), the goddess culture (E.C. Whitmont), ecocriticism (Susan Rowland), light inside dark times (Michael Meade), and sexuality and the religious imagination (Bradley TePaske). Synthesizing these post-Jungian perspectives and revisiting this hagiographic literature through the lens of this fusion allows for a new reading beyond the classical one. The latter type focuses on the ascension and reflects a challenge of ‘worldly’ patriarchy in favor of a ‘father god’. However, a new reading highlighting the psychically nourishing aspects of descent into nature, withdrawal into the self, and thus the ‘underworld’ of the psyche will show the fruitful katabasis resulting in the heroism of ‘sainthood’.
