The hero mytheme that stands for the outer journey and maturing self is simply not possible without facing the uncanny and without the aid of the feminine. The journey cannot take place without the hero or the heroine being shuttered by the uncanny and then helped and transformed by the meeting with goddesses. However, the role of the symbolic feminine is far more than aiding the hero and shattering the ego. The symbolic feminine best captures the multiplicity (Irigaray 1985, 36) of symbols, the “many-sidedness of human nature” and “soul-making” (Hillman 1975, xiv). The purpose of this chapter is to explore and appreciate the crucial symbolic mytheme of the feminine in a deep culture perspective, identifying it in myth, popular culture, and religion. Here, we discuss two features of the symbol: multiplicity and ambiguity in classical and modern myths.

The chapter is divided into five sections. We begin with a quick overview of the way in which we are talking about the symbolic feminine. The next section discusses polyvalence of the archetypal feminine, focusing on prehistory, ancient myths, religions, and contemporary examples from cinema. Here, drawing on revisioning Neumann's seminal study, we emphasize the symbolic feminine as the expression of polyvalence within psyche and the world. The third section moves on to the ambiguity of the symbolic feminine, focusing on the oft-neglected dark side of the symbolic feminine in myth and culture. Drawing again on Neumann and folklorists, the section describes the polar, confounding-dark yet guiding-wise aspects of old and young witches, as well as one of the most powerful feminine symbols of Medusa Gorgon. The fourth section focuses on the unity in multiplicity of the symbolic feminine centered on the story of two Greek goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, archetypal mother and daughter. We show how the depth and multiplicity of these female figures were disclosed through a mystery religion, and how this myth continues to be a major metaphor for the journey of the psyche/soul today. The chapter concludes with a section briefly summarizing how we see the deep culture perspective disclosing representations of the symbolic feminine in myth and popular culture today, including its intersection with the sacred feminine in religious symbolism, as with Marian iconography.