CENTRE FOR MYTH STUDIES
University of Essex
OPEN SEMINAR
The Alchemical Oedipus:
Re-Visioning the Myth
Reginald Ajuonuma
University of Essex
Thursday 14 December 2023
7.30 – 9.00 pm (GMT)
Online
All welcome
To register for this Zoom event, please email: pps@essex.ac.uk before 11.30 am on the day of the seminar (mention CMS open seminar)
‘Death of Laius’, The Delphian Society: The World’s Progress, Part III (W. B. Conkey Company, 1913)
The Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud’s use of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology’s engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth’s psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductive Freudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth. This is achieved by reincorporating those parts of the myth that occur before and after the period portrayed in Oedipus Rex. Such a move reintegrates Oedipus’ father, King Laius, into the story and unveils important parallels with the alchemical trope of the king’s renewal by his son. Using Jung’s method of amplification, Oedipus is recast as Laius’ redeemer and identified with the archetype of psychological wholeness, the Self. The contention is that such an understanding of Oedipus supports a clearer recognition of the potentially generative quality of human suffering, restoring to the myth the quality of moral instruction it possessed in antiquity.
Reg’s recent article, on which his open seminar will be based, is freely available to download at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12959
Reginald Ajuonuma, M.A., M.Phil. Cantab., (UK) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. His research is interdisciplinary, spanning analytical psychology, phenomenology, and narrative theory. He is a recipient of the David Holt Prize, awarded annually by the University of Essex for outstanding performance on the master’s course in Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies. Reginald’s doctoral research is funded by the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England.
Essex Myth 