Healing Pandora: The Restoration of Hope and Abundance

by Gail Thomas, Robert Sardello (Foreword by)

Overview

The story of Pandora is one of the most resonant in Greek mythology. As Healing Pandora shows, it’s also one of the most relevant. Psychologist Gail Thomas has used Pandora in her practice for two decades, often with profound results. Cast in popular accounts as the evil bringer of doom to humanity in divine retaliation for Prometheus stealing fire, Pandora, in Thomas’ view, is a much more complex character, with enormous healing powers as well as her better-known destructive capacity. In this revelatory book, Thomas shows Pandora’s true nature as the dark but all-giving feminine, the archetypal vessel of culture and city with the power to heal our culture. Pandora’s task is to help us transform our overwhelmingly material civilization into a culture of undivided participation and engagement.

Part one discusses Pandora’s multifaceted persona as both beautiful evil and divine benefactress. Here Thomas contextualizes Pandora in the cycle of myth and archetype. In part two, the author proposes a series of healing rituals—“Healing Our Fear of Sacrifice,” “Healing Our Dis-Ease,” “Healing the Control of Patriarchy,” and others—inspired by Pandora. Both practical guide and inspiring study, Healing Pandora argues persuasively for manifesting our inner work concretely on the cultural, not just personal, level.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556438394
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	09/29/2009
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Gail Thomas, PhD, is an archetypal psychologist and cultural activist, cofounder of the Dallas Institute, and director of its Center for the City. She is co-editor of several books, including Images of the Untouched: Virginity in Psyche, Myth, and Community. A longtime organizer for urban renewal and green design, she lives in Dallas.

Table of Contents

Foreword Robert Sardello xi

preface: a cultural Myth xxi

Introduction: pandora as soul: the making of culture xxiii

Part 1 Pandora: Her Myths And Her Making

Chapter 1 Pandora: Divine Benefactress or the Beautiful Evil? 3

First Fruits 3

What Is the Image of Western Culture? 4

A Primordially Feminine Culture as a Permanent Realm of the Psyche 5

Hesiod's Version: The Price for Fire, an Evil Thing 7

With the Beautiful Maid Comes the Curse of Man 8

Chapter 2 Hesiod: Bachelor Farmer 11

"She Is After Your Barn!" 12

The Five Ages of the World 14

Her Thought Caused Sorrow and Mischief to Men 14

First Get a House, a Woman, and an Ox for the Plow 16

Womb Envy: The Origin of Trade 17

Chapter 3 Prometheus:The Formation of a New Order 23

The Great Ruse 23

But He Took the Gift 26

The Gift and Gift Giving 30

Chapter 4 The Making of Pandora 35

A Mixture of Earth and Water 36

Athena's Gift: The Web of Contradiction 37

Aphrodite's Gift: Cruel Longing and Cares That Weary the Limbs 39

Hermes's Gift: A Shameless Mind and a Deceitful Nature 40

Mortal Beauty: A Divine Mirroring 42

A God Dwells within Her Name 44

The Mystery of Winged Things 45

The All-Giving Instinct: The Origin of Evil 46

Chapter 5 Pandora as Earth Goddess 49

The First Focus of Worship 50

Rituals to the Gods 51

Pandora: The Chthonic Realm 53

The Eleusinian Mysteries 54

Chapter 6 Pandora and the Underworld 59

Hammers and Mallets Await Her 59

A Love God Hovers over Her Head 59

Pandora and Hermes Psychopompos: The Release of Souls 64

Contents of Pandora's Box: Souls or Bacilli? 65

Chapter 7 The Vessel71

The Vessel as Female Body 72

The Vessel as Soul 73

The Vessel as Culture 73

Pandora's Box 74

All the Goods There Are 75

Looking for the Origin of Evil 78

The Computerized Box 81

Chapter 8 The City: The Ultimate Vessel 89

The City as Pandora 89

Pandora: Foundation for the City 91

The Founding of the City: Honoring the Dead 92

Rome 95

History of Pandora's Connection with the City 97

Paris 100

Part 2 the Making of Culture

Chapter 9 Psychological Wordplay: Myth or Fact? 111

Chapter 10 Healing Our Fear of Sacrifice: Lilith 117

Images of Sacrifice 117

Forever Separated from the Gods 119

Lilith 119

The Zohar: In the Beginning 120

The Shekinah in Exile 124

Making Holy 125

Healed Feminine Consciousness 127

Chapter 11 Healing the Fear of Not Knowing: Medusa 129

Medusa 130

Chapter 12 Healing the Denial of Death: Demeter and Persephone 135

Death as Essence 136

The Dead as Ground of the Living 137

Demeter 137

The Place of Not Knowing 138

Creativity and Renewal of Life 139

Pluto the Rich 140

Chapter 13 Healing the Control of Patriarchy: Clytemnestra 145

What Does Clytemnestra See? 150

Birth, Death, and Renewal 151

A Pandora Consciousness 154

Chapter 14 Healing Our "Dis-ease": Bulimia 157

Cultural Bulimia 161

Conclusion 171

Notes 175

Index 185

Acknowledgments 195

About The Author 197